Some Words About
Organic & Organic Soap

The organic food industry is regulated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).   According to the USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, "The USDA regulates organic personal care products only if they are made up of agricultural ingredients. We have no standards for personal care products and have no plans to develop standards at this time."

At this time there are no standards created specifically for the personal care product industry.
Organic certification of personal care products is based on the organic
food standards set by the National Organic Program of the USDA.

The National Organic Program (NOP) was created in 1990 after congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) to ensure that agricultural products marketed as “Organic” would meet consistent and uniform standards.

A  product that is certified organic is made from ingredients grown and processed without chemical fertilizers, growth hormones, GMOs, or synthetic pesticides. The product must undergo yearly inspections and meet certain criteria for production, handling, processing, and labeling in order to receive USDA organic certification.

In 2002 the USDA announced that the scope of the National Organic Program would extend beyond food to other items including personal care products.  Unfortunately, we have noticed that use of the word "organic" on the labels of personal care products is not held up to the same rigorous standards as organic labels on food. 

The "certified organic" labeling system for food and other products has three levels or tiers of certification...  (See USDA Organic Labeling Information sheet)

• 100% Organic
  Products can be labeled “100 percent organic” if they contain 100% organically grown and produced ingredients (excluding water and salt). These products can display the USDA organic logo and/or the logo of the specific certifying agent.
• Organic
  Products can be labeled as "organic" if 95% of the ingredients are organic (excluding water and salt). The remaining 5% must consist of  non-agricultural substances that areon the  USDA approved ingredient List. These products can display the USDA organic logo and/or the logo of the specific certifying agent.
• Made With Organic Ingredients
  Products can be labeled "made with organic ingredients" if at least 70% organic ingredients are used (excluding water and salt).  The remaining 30% of the non-organic ingredients may even be synthetic, but must be approved on the National List.   These products may display the certifying agent's logo but not the USDA organic logo.
   

We make our “organic" soap and shampoo as organic as possible

Since it is impossible to make real soap without lye (learn more) and organic lye does not exist, there is no such thing as a “100% organic” soap or even “organic” soap based on the three tier system of the USDA National Organic Program mentioned above.

ALL of the other ingredients (base oils, botanicals, natural additives, essential oils, etc.) in our “Organic as Possible” soaps and shampoos are certified organic.  Under the National Organic Program (NOP), water cannot be certified as “organic” or called an “organic” ingredient and cannot be included when calculating the percentage of organic ingredients in a product.  Since we superfat our soaps at a pretty high rate (which means less lye),  and use organic coconut milk in place of much of the water, our organic soap is 90% organic.  Due to the chemistry of soapmaking (learn more), it is impossible for any soapmaker to have a much higher percentage than that based on the USDA standards as they now exist.   

Soapmaking adds another dimension to the labeling issue in that it is the result of a chemical reaction. Personal care products such as creams, lotions, etc are simply a mixture of ingredients.  By definition, a mixture is composed of two or more substances and each substance keeps its original properties in the final product.   As a result of the chemical reaction of soapmaking (saponification), there is no lye left in the finished product.  If we were allowed to exclude the lye in calculating the percentage of organic ingredients in our finished bars, our "organic as possible"  soaps could be 100% organic.

Truth in labeling is important to us at Chagrin Valley Soap.  Educated, informed consumers make the best choices.  Hopefully as consumer awareness grows and the natural and organic personal care products industry also grows, the federal government will adopt labeling standards for personal care products which will include the special circumstances of real handmade soap!

• Beware of companies where the actual name of the company has the word "organic" in its title.  For example, we could name a company Snow Valley Organics.  Unfortunately, if you read the ingredients of the products made by these companies, not only are they not organic, but often many are not even natural!
   
• A product label will read, “Made with 90% organic Ingredients.”   The first ingredient on the label is water.  The alleged organic ingredient is mostly the water and water should not be considered an organic ingredient.  Unfortunately many of the remaining ingredients are synthetic.
   
• A product label will read, "made with organic ingredients."  This leads the consumer to believe that the entire product is all organic.  Unfortunately, there is often just a small amount of truly organic material in the product.  But technically the product is "made with" some small amount of all organic ingredients so the claim is true, even though misleading. 
   
• A product label will read, "made with 100% organic ingredients."  The "100%" claim often refers to one or two ingredients, which are "100% organic," even if other ingredients are synthetic.

At Chagrin Valley Soap and craft we do not stretch the meaning of "organic."  We list ALL of the ingredients in our products so you can make a truly "informed" decision about your skincare needs.