“Natural” Skin Care Is a Lie
When you think about it, adding artificial substances to our skin is pretty unnatural. The ingredients of even the most “natural” skin care products are extracted, chemically formulated and processed in some industrial facility. It has become popular to refer to some commercial skin care products as “pure” or “natural” as opposed to others, but these terms don’t really mean much.
There is no official definition of “natural”.
“Natural” is one of those words that regulators don’t give a precise definition of. On the contrary, there is an extremely detailed definition of “organic” – you can’t just call your product organic without being able to prove that its ingredients were grown and produced to USDA organic standards .
Under US law, the FDA regulates cosmetics and their labeling. They have strict rules about when you can call a product “economy size” and which body washes can legally be called “soap”. But they didn’t create a definition for “natural.” (However, the Federal Trade Commission cracked down on several companies for claiming products are “all natural” even though they clearly contain synthetic ingredients.) In 2021 , the Natural Cosmetics Act was proposed , defining the term “natural” for cosmetics. but it didn’t go through.
These one-ingredient skincare products are as natural as can be:
- This unrefined shea butter is the oily substance inside the shea nuts; You can rub it into your skin like a lotion.
- Colloidal oatmeal is an oatmeal powder that mixes smoothly with bath water.
- Dead Sea bath salt is just salt.
The term “natural” is used for marketing, not safety.
Companies call their products “natural” because they can look more appealing to consumers. There are many “standards” for what is considered natural, but they do not agree with each other. For example, COSMOS requires that 95% of herbal ingredients in skincare or beauty products be certified organic as defined by the USDA. On the other hand, Allure magazine has its own “Pure Beauty” label , which they give to products that do not contain 15 classes of ingredients.
Skincare products often advertise themselves as “clean” or otherwise good because they don’t contain certain ingredients, but there’s often no logical argument to ditch those ingredients, and certainly not as a group. There isn’t even a good colloquial definition of what we mean when we use the word “natural”. As Chemists Corner points out , crude oil is a product of nature, and therefore petroleum products may be natural, but almost no one thinks of them that way.
Reasons to call a product “natural” or “pure” don’t always make sense.
Companies, influencers, and publications will talk about pure or natural skin care products in terms of what they don’t contain, but those ingredients don’t have much in common. They are not necessarily bad for you, and they are not necessarily more unnatural than ingredients that are not on such lists.
For example, products are often marketed as “paraben-free” and parabens are among the questionable ingredients in Allure. But the FDA notes that there is no evidence (yet) that parabens have any effect on human health , and that if you want to avoid them as a precaution, it raises concerns that anything you replace parabens with can itself have health implications. . It’s okay to avoid ingredients for any reason – I’m not a paraben apologist – but it’s worth remembering that many natural products can also be harmful to us. Removing a synthetic item from an ingredient list does not necessarily make a product safer or healthier.
To take another ironic example, Allure’s list of ingredients that disqualify a product from the “Pure Beauty” seal includes ingredients that they admit do not pose a serious health risk, such as sodium lauryl/laureth sulfate. They correctly point out that the American Cancer Society has debunked the myth that SLS causes cancer, and the worst thing it can do is irritate some people’s skin (like many cosmetic ingredients). But he’s still on the list.
Sunscreen is another example: while you sometimes hear the argument that mineral-based sunscreens are more “natural,” both mineral and chemical sunscreens must be made to precise specifications before they can work effectively on the skin. Both chemical and mineral sunscreens are overwhelmingly considered safe , and both have minor potential safety issues. One is absolutely not better or more natural than the other.
Ultimately, “pure” and “natural” skincare products are more marketing than science, and getting rid of the jargon can save you a lot of time, stress, and money.