Why Can't All Ingredients Be Certified Organic?

Summary: Miessence, an Australia based manufacturer born just a few years back, changed the way that Australians think of organic products and also the way that they view the personal care products they've been using for years. Miessence and it's founder, ONE group (Organic and Natural Enterprise), exploded from an unknown to a massive sales increase of 2500% in just eighteen months. Within the last year or so Miessence and ONE group hit the United States and is growing just as ...

Miessence, an Australia based manufacturer born just a few years back, changed the way that Australians think of organic products and also the way that they view the personal care products they've been using for years. Miessence and it's founder, ONE group (Organic and Natural Enterprise), exploded from an unknown to a massive sales increase of 2500% in just eighteen months. Within the last year or so Miessence and ONE group hit the United States and is growing just as fast. The fact is that consumers, me included, have become aware and wary at the same time of what's in our products. Manufacturers throw stuff in all the time to preserve products, color them, perfume them, with little to no regard for the side affects of such actions. They do it to keep the products cheap, making people want to continue to buy from them. But, the fact is, these chemicals may be costing much more in the long run, in terms of our health and that of our children, pets or the wildlife we enjoy around our homes. So what is about Miessence that gets people excited? They're certified organic. But that seems contradictory, right? How can face cream be certified or shampoo? When people think of something being certified organic by the USDA their minds generally turn to food and in fact the USDA has no standards set for products other than food. So Miessence certified their face creams and toothpastes, etc. for the food grade standards, making them the first certified organic products on the planet that isn't a food. And heck we used to make our soaps and stuff from plants little more than a hundred years ago. The industrial age introduced us to the world of chemicals and we are just now seeing the havoc those chemicals have done to our bodies and environment. Yet there are a few catches in the overall purpose that Miessence is attempting to attain. Some of their products use ingredients that can not be certified by any ruling board. Why not? Because some of them aren't even organic. Let's start with cosmetics. This would include Miessence's line as well as manufacturers like Bare Minerals or other cosmetics companies attempting to make cosmetics safer for women. Mineral make-up does in fact use minerals, but not from mining, due to high levels of contamination. Miessence attains theirs from refined and purified man-made minerals. Zinc-oxide is one mineral in particular. It is used as the white powder base for cosmetics and gives them superior sun protection qualities. It is soft and heavy and recognized by the TGA for it's soothing and healing properties. Actually, zinc oxide has been used for thousands of years as a whitening agent, back when woman preferred a pasty, white complexion. It was obviously a far safer alternative to the lead that many used. Other common minerals used in mineral cosmetics are iron oxide and mica. Iron oxide is used to give color. The darker the skin or the pinker the blush the more iron oxides are added. Mica reflects light from the face giving it a smoother appearance. Neither have been shown to cause any harm when used correctly, though all of these minerals are claimed to be harmful to the immune system, respiratory system and reproductive system if they are ingested. Now come on, how many of you are going to eat your makeup, considering minerals are basically crushed rock. I personally preferred a baked potato to eating a rock. Concerns over the harm caused by nanoparticles has arisen in recent years and the way in which superfine mineral powders in mineral cosmetics may affect the body and whether or not it can penetrate the skin. But perspective buyers can be comforted by Miessence's response to such concerns, "The average particle size of our iron oxides is 1.3 microns, which is much too large to be considered a nanoparticle. Nanoparticles are less than 100 nanometres.... very very small!" So that takes care of minerals. What other ingredients can not be certified by the governing bodies? Well, there is one chemical in the shampoos that stops this Miessence product from being certified: coco-polyglucose, a "non-ionic surfactant" synthesised from coconut and glucose from corn. So why does Miessence use this chemical? It's rather silly actually, but what can you do? You see, of all of the available plant extracts not a one of them will foam up or become sudsy, leaving you with a product that works beautifully without being soapy, but people refuse to use it. Why? Because in our brainwashed society being sudsy equates to a cleaning products. If don't soap up it don't clean. So what do you do? Well, the founder of ONE group, Narelle Chenery went in search of the safest surfactant she could find to put the minds of those poor people to rest that yes in fact the shampoo will clean them. Here is what Miessence had to say about polyglucose : "Polyglucose has excellent dermatological compatibility. It is very mild on the skin. Based on the Duhring Chamber Test it has the lowest irritation score of all common surfactants tested. It is free from ethylene oxide, which can cause nitrosamine contamination, and free from preservatives. It also has a very low environmental impact due to: 1) High bio-degradability - It breaks down readily. 2) High eco-toxicological compatibility - It doesn't harm the environment if released. 3)It is manufactured from completely renewable vegetable raw materials. It is very good, however it is still not certified organic. ONE Group will do better. They are working on replacing it with a certified organic "foaming agent" of similar functionality, but it takes time. Rest assured that as soon as they have a certified organic replacement that works, they will introduce it." Other non-organic ingredients include the clays used in masks for cleaning, obviously another earth mineral and once again should not be ingested. The toothpastes have sea salt, again not organic, but natural and clean of contaminants. There are several other un certifiable ingredients in the Miessence products but they all serve a purpose to enhance the products they are used in and of course ONE group goes the extra step to be sure that all ingredients are clean of contaminants and easy on the environment.