What is Natural?

What is Natural?

Today’s Natural skincare market is flooded, let's face it; each business trying to find their unique selling point to entice the ever scrupulous customer. The main thing that everyone seems to agree on is that they are looking for “Natural”, but what is "Natural"?

There are so many problems when defining this. Wikipedia describes it as “of ingredients that are available in nature”. But this line is blurring significantly with the advances of laboratory ingredients designed to imitate nature… and I wonder if these are actually better than the original ingredients.

Plus, in the effort to be more environmentally and socially conscious by buying into marketing that is aimed at what is Natural, are we just causing more harm than good?

This is a rather large can of worms to be opening.. Suddenly we can look at issues with Greenwashing (a conversation I will get into another day) or mislabelling of products to make the consumer believe what they are buying is “good”.

I’d love to know your thoughts as I feel that the term natural is becoming increasingly vague, and I think it is important when looking at what is actually sustainable skincare; maybe lab made ingredients that mimic those derived from plants are a sounder choice? Considering some only have a finite lifespan and are of a finite resource and some have human rights issues at sourcing.

 So, I would like to hear from you; is the term natural only meant for an ingredient that has purely come from a plant? Or would you accept natural as an ingredient that has the same chemical make up, but is developed in a laboratory.

To help you out, there are ingredients such as hyaluronic acid, CoEnzyme Q10 and Niacinamide ; all made in a lab, but are based on nature, or derived from a natural ingredient.

Let me know XX