I’ve written before about the fact that if you Google the search term ‘organic skin care’, the first brand to pop up is Liz Earle, which is not, erm, organic. I blogged that ages and ages ago, and just did another search with the same term and yes, Liz Earle pops up at the top again. It’s in a pink banner that has a teeny weeny little label that says ‘ads’. This time, though, Liz Earle is joined in the pink banner section by Origins (who do have an organic range, although it is 95% organic – is that organic, even?? You can’t be 95% pregnant. You either are or you aren’t) and Dr Hauschka which on its own home page claims to be a ‘natural brand’ and not an organic one. Then we actually get into the real organic brands such as Green People who presumably don’t have the budget to pay to come up first.
It’s just so misleading to pay for a slot in a category where you’ve no business being in the hopes that people might then assume that natural and organic are the same and plunge ahead and buy the products. It’s a little bit like clicking through on a picture of a red lipstick to find that actually, all the lipsticks are pink. Yes, it’s lipstick.. but. If you’re proud of your products, their natural ingedients and their quality, why pretend they are something they actually aren’t by paying to be listed under a category for which they don’t qualify? Do not understand this at all.
But just to be completely clear, in case there is one jot of confusion left, Liz Earle is not an organic brand. Repeat, not.
PS: Wanted to put this comment from a reader in the body of the text regarding Dr Hauschka and I’m happy to stand corrected.
Anja said…
Just one small correction:
You can’t get more organic than Dr. Hauschka. I have worked for the brand, I have single handedly crushed roses collected by hand before dawn that were then thrown in their lotions and potions using the antrophosopic method. They are not organic, they are more: organic, antroposophic, natural, holistic. They even carry the German label for organic cosmetical products, which has incredibly strict guidelines, much stricter than those in other countries.
Sorry for delivering too much information or seeming like an advertisement (I am not affiliated with them anymore), but putting Dr. Hauschka at the same level of Liz Earle and Origins is just plain wrong.
Additionally, I have a quote from the CEO of Dr Hauschka, Sebastian Parsons, explaining their point of view:
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9 comments
Just one small correction:
You can’t get more organic than Dr. Hauschka. I have worked for the brand, I have single handedly crushed roses collected by hand before dawn that were then thrown in their lotions and potions using the antrophosopic method. They are not organic, they are more: organic, antroposophic, natural, holistic. They even carry the German label for organic cosmetical products, which has incredibly strict guidelines, much stricter than those in other countries.
Sorry for delivering too much information or seeming like an advertisement (I am not affiliated with them anymore), but putting Dr. Hauschka at the same level of Liz Earle and Origins is just plain wrong.
95% organic and certified is bloody excellent! There is only about 3% land globally that’s designated ‘organic’ so the volumes avaialable for production is tiny.
Certification is a torturous process for brands and one reason why genuinely organic products can be so expensive. It’s very hard to get a certified (BDIH, Ecocert, Soil Assoc) product with 100% certification as they’ll never allow you to claim organic status for water for example, which goes into so many products in large quantities.
Doesn’t mean there aren’t still a lot of charlatans in this sector so you’re right to keep an eye out. With regards to Liz Earle, the brand uses some organic ingredients AFAIK and green production methods so I’m imagining that’s where the justification lies.
Kirstie: totally understand where you are coming from but oh, the whole organic thing is so complicated and I just really truly object to LE implying they are organic. I’ve been all the way through the site.. I know they’re hot on recycling, eco awareness etc and that is entirely to their credit, but organic they are not, so why pay for advertising to imply they are? That doesn’t sit well with me at all. When I did a search on the LE site with the word ‘organic’ it gave me 3 products. 3 out of how many? hundreds. It’s really not ok in my view.
Just find the whole organic thing exhausting really – they are businesses after all, not charities and I’d genuinely like to see the difference between ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ more clearly defined.
Ads are ads – I know if I click on those top lines I’ll get what someone has paid for me to find not necessarily what I’m looking for. I think the thing here is that Ethically we expect more from Liz Earle – but they are a company and money has to be made.
As to companies saying a product is 95% organic – some ingredients just can’t get organic status – minerals etc because they come out of the ground. If it’s not grown or reared it won’t ever meet the criteria because it can’t be proved.
Thank you for the refreshing post!
You are right about highlighting the false and misleading natural claims that many non natural brands do happily and light heartedly. The crucial question is if they lie about natural claims what else do they lie about to get you to buy their products?
It is true that the organic certification is complicated, however pretending to be organic or green by using some organic ingredient in a synthetic base is misleading and unfair competition to genuine green brands. Why can’t they say “we are synthetic and by the way we use some natural?” If they use synthetics their products will be cheaper to make and last longer.
The statement on being a business and making money seems to me that to lie is ok to make money. I know a business has to make money but not that way. It is harder, but at the end of the day I am at peace with myself and my clients.
As a marketeer, I feel the need to butt in here! Liz Earle have obviously got a comrehensive SEO campaign where they inevitably have put together a key list of words that they feel represents their brand, the interest of their customers or are words that link in to the kind of products their customer would be interested in. By chosing to have a few key words that they may to be ranked highly in, they are in no way claiming to be organic, they are simply identifying that their products would be of interest to people googling that term.
This is the way that all brands work, from ketchup to crisps, to beds and holidays – it’s how SEO companies make their buck and Google are one of the most powerful brands on the planet. By there being no actual organic brand in the top position, this means that basically nobody was willing to pay top notch for the slot (if they even bid for it at all) and so Liz Earle have plugged a gap.
When I actually googled it, FYI, Liz Earle weren’t even on the page! The top brands were 3 organic ones.
This is just the nature of google ad words, PPC, SEO and all those other complicated things that people like me make a living doing. Believe me, nobody sat round in a board room and said “I know, lets shove loads of money at google and pretend that we’re organic” because google just wouldn’t allow it.
I’ve met everyone that works for Liz Earle, having been to their offices, spent time with them on numerous occasions and had the pleasure of finding out what the culture of the company is really like. I can’t imagine in any way, shape or form, that this is a cunning plan cooked up to fool people – they just don’t work in that way. That’s not what their business is about.
Google’s business, on the other hand, is about selling those little pink boxes with the word ‘ad’ in them ; )
It is true that the natural & organic skincare industry can be misleading, with a lot more companies claiming to have organic products. There has been an increase in products claiming to be organic because they use 1 organic ingredient amongst all the other synthetic ones. If the organic ingredient in a shampoo is lavender then that apparently gives companies the right to name that product as an “organic lavender shampoo,” even though the organic percentage of the product could be as little as 0.5%. This is obviously very frustrating for ethical companies such as Green People, because we try hard to make our products as natural and organic as possible.
Meanwhile, to address your other concern, it is hard for a product to get 100% organic certification because water and minerals cannot be classed as having an organic status. Also, very few functional ingredients such as emulsifiers and foaming agents used to make creams, lotions and shampoos are available as organic quality. It is worth knowing that for a product to be “certified organic” it needs to have over 70% certified organic ingredients. It’s a definite insight when checking labels as to what percentage of the product actually contains organic ingredients – some are shockingly low in actual organic ingredients.
Finally, Google are masters at selling ad space, and on competitive terms like “organic skincare” genuine organic companies may feel that it is not worth the expense to bid for those top 3 paid ad spots. The companies you mention are owned by Avon and Estee Lauder respectively and therefore have substantial advertising budgets. Everything comes with a price. It’s the marketing era we are in but it is nice to see consumers becoming knowledge savvy about what is organic and what is just a marketing ploy. 🙂
As a retailer of Organic & Natural products I would just like to leave a little comment or two.
Great debate here about what is and what isn’t Organic/Natural. I’m afraid there is no real answer.
When we first started out 3yrs ago it was a direct result of my son’s skin conditions and i too was disgusted by many many brands that gave the implication they were organic, only to find later they were full of man-made chemicals.
I started out selling ONLY products that were certified Organic or Natural but as a retailer i quickly learned there simply aren’t enough brands of that ilk so I opened up a little more.
The argument about whether to go certified or not from the brand owners point of view usually boiled down to whether they felt there was a distinct advantage to be gained going through, let’s face it, the long and costly process of certification.
I am not here to judge whether they are right or wrong, simply that that is usually their argument.
As ever, until there is clear legislation and guidlines my own personal feelings about the situation is one of education.
We are the only leading Organic & Natural beauty retailer who actually own a salon and as such we are constantly receiving the highest personal, one-to-one training directly from the brands themselves and it’s with this information with which we educate our customers with.
So the question of “how organic is organic” is answered differently to different people.
Over the last 3 years we’ve seen many a brand that label themselves Organic. There have been products that have been sooo organic they had a shelf life of about a week (i reckon you were safe to spread them on a bit of toast and eat them they were that fresh)right to the other end of the scale were there were just traces of something organic within them.
Ultimately, if you advertise something as Organic you must do so in the knowledge that you will be scrutinised by people who know what they’re talking about.
Hello 🙂
95% organic is really good. Some ingredients just can’t be sourced as organic.
I think with the case of Liz Earle, they assume that someone searching for organic products might be interested in their products as they use ‘some’ natural ingredients (just a guess). Just as long as they are not stating that they are organic when they’re not then I don’t see a problem.
Smaller brands tend to use budget-friendly promotional techniques so they don’t have to lose out. I’ve come to know so many natural and organic brands just from Facebook ads, through Twitter and from blogs.
The best way to know if a product is organic is to look out for certification, in my opinion.
I’m not entirely fussed over certification as it’s more important for me that the product is natural than organic. So I just check the ingredients list to ensure that the ingredients are natural.
There is a haircare brand (I think it’s American) sold at Boots with the word organic in big writing on the packaging. Looking at the ingredients, it is full of parabens! So always check the ingredients!
🙂