Swap out harsh chemicals for natural ingredients with these skincare treat.
The appeal of organic is obvious: consumers are increasingly concerned with transparency about where ingredients come from, and avoiding those grown with artificial fertilisers, pesticides, feed additives, GMO and irradiation is essential for anyone wanting a more natural lifestyle.
However, finding organic products is much more complicated. There are no legal ramifications of the term “organic”, so any brand that wants to can market their products as so, even if they contain only one ingredient that is organic. For proper belts and braces, look for a label that states a product has been independently certified, which means that a brand has paid to be certified and had to meet strict criteria, including a high proportion of organic ingredients (usually 95 per cent or more).
In the UK, the gold standard is the Soil Association, but if the brand originates from another country, it might be another body such as Ecocert, NATRUE or the Ø-label in Denmark (the first country in the world to introduce state-regulated certification for organics). Even here there remains variation: each organisation will have its own different standards.
Some of the brands here are not organic certified, but state that they do their best to use organic ingredients wherever possible, so despite the fact that they’re not certified, many of their key ingredients are organically farmed. The reality is that a product will never be 100 per cent organic – ingredients as simple as water or clay are not farmed and therefore can’t be certified.
We’ve done a bit of digging to find a variety of shower gels that, even if not fully certified, contain some organic, high quality ingredients, and are cruelty-free and mostly natural and vegan. We’ve tested them using the same tough criteria we use for non-organic products, including packaging, experience of use and price point.
You can trust our independent reviews. We may earn commission from some of the retailers, but we never allow this to influence selections, which are formed from real-world testing and expert advice. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent. Read more
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