New beauty trade association to create organic standards

MILPITAS, Calif. The organic beauty and personal care industry continues to gain steam with the creation of OASIS, a trade association that will establish a workable and "living" set of standards for organic and sustainable manufacturing—starting with the beauty and personal care industry.

Navigating the beauty and personal care aisles can sometimes be confusing as more products claim to be "organic," stated OASIS (Organic and Sustainable Industry Standards). Looking to bring clarity to the segment and set a U.S. organic standard for beauty and personal care, a group of trade professionals from such companies as Hain Celestial Group, L'Oreal, Perfect Organics and Aveda formed OASIS.

“The beauty of OASIS is that as an industry consensus standard its members range from large, global brands, such as Estee Lauder Companies and L’Oreal. to third-party and private-label manufacturers to smaller, specialist brands, such as Perfect Organics and Juice Beauty,” stated Gay Timmons, chairperson of OASIS and founder of Oh, Oh Organics.

According to OASIS, the organic production standard will have two levels: “made with organic” and “organic.”

The "made with organic" will start and remain at a 70 percent minimum organic content with additional criteria for the remaining 30 percent of ingredients.

The "organic" label claim will start at 85 percent until January 2010, then it will shift to 90 percent and to 95 percent two years later. According to OASIS, It will take at least two years for surfactant and emulsifier manufacturers to get enough products into the commercial stream to supply "organic" versions of functional ingredients.