We are living in the age of consumerism where every company, every brand wants to attract as many people as possible. This competition often leads to false claims and wrong promises. Such is the case with most of the products which claim to be ‘Eco friendly’, ‘natural’ or ‘organic’. This article is an attempt to make you aware of such watch words on the labels which can help you to identify whether a particular product is natural or not.
1. Certified green
The first thing that comes into the mind when we see the ‘certified green’ label on any product is that either it poses no threat to the environment or has some environmental benefits of its own. However, experts have totally different opinion about it, according to them the term ‘green’ is too ambiguous to be meaningful. Other thing that you must look after is the authority which has given this ‘green’ certification to the product because in most of the cases this label is found to be self made.
2. Allergy friendly fragrance
Synthetically prepared fragrance oils often act as a sort of trigger for people suffering from different sort of allergies, that is why companies claim their product to be ‘fragrance free’ or ‘allergy friendly fragrance’. It may happen that the particular product contains natural essential oils which cause no harm to allergic persons, but still it may contain certain harmful chemicals SLS and DEA. Other than this, it may even happen that the product contains some other synthetic chemicals which suppresses the fragrance of other ingredients.
3. Environmentally friendly
You must have come across a large range of products which carry a label of ‘Eco safe’ or ‘environmentally friendly’. In fact, most of the people fall prey to such claims, however, the fact is that, till now no organization exists or has been formed which provides such sort of certification. In fact, most of the trusted organizations consider this term to be vague and all the products which claim to be so have got the title by themselves.
4. Organic
You’ll definitely be surprised by the fact that most of the brands which boast about being organic often contain little or no organic ingredients. In fact, it has been observed in many cases that companies in order to provide that ‘organic’ feel don’t hesitate to add some synthetic chemicals into their products that pose health risks. So it is much better to stay away from such products,
5. Non toxic
Let me ask you a simple question, what is the first thing that comes into your kind when you see the ‘non toxic’ label on any product? That it is totally harmless and does not contain any such chemical which can be toxic. However, this is just the partial truth because the fact is that products which claim to be non toxic are just lesser harmful than their counterparts, but still they contain toxic ingredients or in other words, it is just a safer alternative of some other hazardous ingredient.
6. Made with
You must have certainly came across with phrases such as ‘made with lavender oil’ or something like that. Let me tell you one thing, nine out of ten such products contain only around 1 percent of those ingredients, the rest of being those synthetic chemicals. The key is to look for the percentage of the ‘claimed’ stuff in the label, this way you’ll get a better idea of the amount of that ingredient.
7. Hypoallergenic or sensitivity tested
Most of the companies which claim their product to be sensitivity tested actually never perform such types of tests because no authority or organization asks them to provide such sort of evidence. In fact, there is no such regulation to carry such tests and that is why most of the labels are self made. So its better to look for the organizations behind these claims rather than just believing in the labels.
8. Natural
This is perhaps the most popular phrase that you’ll ever come across. Many companies don’t even hesitate to claim their products to be 100 percent natural, which gives us the illusion that the product contains only naturally occurring substances even when most of the ingredients in it are synthetic chemicals. However, don’t get under the impression that all the so called ‘natural’ products are bad, some of them even contain a large proportion of natural ingredients.
9. Free of
Other popular myth created by companies is the phrase that certain product is ‘free of’ all the toxic and harmful ingredients. Some brands may boast that they contain no harmful chemicals but it is not always true. For instance, any cream brand claiming to be free of parabens, but still containing chemicals like Phenoxethanol is illegal.
10. Derived from
This is again one of the most popular deceptive phrase that is found on labels very frequently. For instance, certain brand of shaving cream claims that it contains oils which have been derived from tea tree. However, this is again a ‘partial’ truth because a number of chemicals get involved in this process of ‘deriving’ which eventually end up in the final product.