As the number of people concerned about toxins in our environment grows, more and more skin care companies are jumping on the "natural" and "organic"anti-aging/skin care bandwagon. But what does "natural" and "organic"mean when we see them on a mainstream manufacturers skin care product label? How do we really know if the skin cream product is really natural? How do we know if herbal skin care products are safe and non-toxic? Is an "organic" product actually natural and made with organic ingredients? What really are the best organic and natural alternatives to synthetic and mostly toxic chemicals? Natural skin care - is it really any better for us?   Our skin is the largest eliminatory organ in the body. It is a two-way membrane. Toxins are eliminated through the skin via perspiration and absorbed through the skin into the body’s circulation system, through hair follicles and sebaceous glands, but not through the sweat glands. One square inch of skin contains approximately 65 hairs, 100 sebaceous glands and 650 sweat glands. Every square inch of your skin is like a thousand open mouths, absorbing into the body most of what is put on it. SO - WHAT DOES “NATURAL” AND THE UBIQUITOUS “ORGANIC” MEAN ON SKIN CARE PRODUCT LABELS? No where does the idea of “natural” or “organic” take a more gratuitous bruising than in the skincare industry. If we first take the word "natural" and look it up in the Concise Oxford Dictionary we would find this description of natural thus; “existing in, or caused by nature; produced by nature; not artificial; true to nature; uncultivated; wild existing in natural state; not disguised or altered”. It seems pretty clear what "natural" actually means to me! Does natural mean the same to you? However, when vested interests in the skin care industry get hold of the word natural - they put a whole new slant on it. It may seem pretty clear to you and me exactly what we mean by natural but for the marketing men they obviously haven't read the dictionary and start bending the interpretation of natural to suit themselves when comes to their skin "care". Many so-called natural skin "care" products have labels with long lists of chemical names, some followed by the phrase “derived from…” (some natural substance). This is grossly misleading for consumers who are looking for genuine safe skin care products. Synthetic Chemicals are anything but natural! When chemicals such as Cocamide DEA or Sodium Hydroxysultaine are followed by the words “derived from coconut oil” the consumer is led to believe that these synthetic chemicals must somehow be "natural". While this may be true in some cases where a natural oil or extract is actually used, it is ultimately irrelevant because what you end up with after the chemical solvent extraction and processing is usually anything but natural, pure or organic. It is just another chemical concoction with some rather awful sounding long names to describe the process the original "natural" substance went through Now what about"organic"?  Again if we look in the dictionary for the word organic it is pretty obvious to us what we expect to find as far as safe natural products in general are concerned. Would you say in the context you are expecting to use or find the term organic that this would be a fair description; "produced and involving production without the use of pesticides, artificial fertilizers or synthetic chemicals." To me it seems rather elementary that when describing a natural skin care product as organic that the above is exactly what the customer would expect. However, to the marketing men this is not what they mean by organic. Let's delve a little deeper into this play on words To create Cocamide DEA, a foaming agent found in some shampoos, requires the addition of a synthetic chemical and known carcinogen, Diethanolamine – DEA, to the coconut oil. It's therefore no longer natural, or even what you could call safe! If we look at the term “organic” on a label, we usually think it means “grown and cultivated without the use of chemicals” as stated above. That's the conclusion most "natural" skin care companies would like us to come to when they use the rather loose term organic and natural. Unscrupulous skin care companies are cynically using the chemistry definition of “organic” –  which is also defined in the dictionary as "a compound that contains a carbon atom" to confuse consumers. This is known in the trade as confusion advertising so the real picture becomes blurred. Carbon is found in everything that has ever lived. Vested interests - by using this definition of organic, they're saying that a toxic petrochemical preservative called Methyl Paraben is “organic”because it was formed from natural leaves that rotted over thousands of years to become crude oil, which was then used to make this toxic totally un-natural preservative they put in "organic" skin care. How absurd is this when consumers are looking for natural skin care products? The play on the word organic gets even worse. An increasing number of companies are now claiming to use “organic” herbs in their products. But, what about the rest of the ingredients? Are they safe? Are they "natural" or from an "organic" source? Surely there must be an authority that governs the use of the term “organic” on labels? The simple answer is NO. What natural skin care products are actually "natural skin care products"? The term “Certified Organic” is governed by a number of internationally recognised bodies. In Australia the Biological Farmers of Australia (BFA) is the largest. Searching for products with the logo of a certifying body on the label is the only way you can guarantee the organic authenticity and integrity of every ingredient in the product. This can then truly be called a natural skin care product. Without the "Certified Organic" label, the organic claim means nothing, as it cannot be verified and most likely it is a complete hoax perpetrated by the marketing men and their hype. HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE BUYING IS REALLY A... “NATURAL”SKIN CARE PRODUCT? Fortunately,there is a very simple way to differentiate between the hype and the truth in skin care and that is to read the ingredient list on the label. It's a legal requirement that all skin care products, natural or otherwise, must be labelled with the ingredients in descending order of their quantity in the product. A good rule of thumb is to divide the ingredient list into thirds: the top third usually contains 90-95% of the product, the middle third usually contains 5-8% and the bottom third, 1-3%.