BOSTON - September 21 - On September 24, 2009 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, thousands of personal care products that claim to be "natural" and "organic" will be on display as retail store buyers from across the globe attend one of the most important natural products' trade shows of the year. This gathering will also mark the launch date of a new phase of the Coming Clean Campaign, led by the nation's largest organic consumer group, the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), in support of the recommendation by the Certification, Accreditation, and Compliance Committee of the USDA National Organic Standards Board, "Solving the Problem of Mislabeled Organic Personal Care Products."  (To view the recommendation, see OCA link at bottom of release.) The recommendation urges the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) to regulate personal care products as they do food in order to clean up rampant organic fraud in the personal care marketplace. The full NOSB Board will be considering and voting on this recommendation at its Nov. 3-5 meeting in Washington D.C.  

To encourage USDA NOP enforcement of organic personal care, the OCA will launch a full scale consumer boycott of all brands falsely labeled as Organic who do not contractually commit by October 26, 2009 to certification of their natural and organic claims by October 31, 2009. Unlike organic foods, many personal care products are falsely labeled as organic, although their main cleansing and moisturizing ingredients are made from non-organic pesticide-intensive agricultural and/or petrochemical material. The OCA will also conduct a full-scale 'buy-cott' of all responsible brands that already are certifying their natural and organic label claims. "The organic retail store buyer's job is to think like a fastidious organic consumer who pays a premium for organic products whose main ingredients benefit the earth and their health, by being grown without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and being free of petrochemical compounds," says Alexis Baden-Mayer, Political Director of the OCA. "The OCA wants these buyers to know misleadingly labeled brands are on their way out starting this holiday season, unless they formulate away from ingredients made entirely or partly of petrochemicals." 

"One would think synthetic petroleum products would not be accepted in the organic marketplace, but sadly they are everywhere," says Baden-Mayer. "We will name the offending brands to boycott as well as the responsible brands that people should buy. We are giving companies one last opportunity to commit to clean up and certify their formulations and/or branding labeling to comply with basic natural and organic criteria," adds Baden-Mayer whose group previously exposed 'natural' and 'organic' brands that contained the probable carcinogen 1,4 dioxane.  

Starting September 24, 2009 until October 2631, 2009 the OCA will give all organic cheater brands the opportunity to contractually commit to certification of their natural and organic claims in one year's time, by November 1, 2010 to the following standards, or drop those claims including the term "Organics" in branding. (The full contract is available through the link to OCA's Coming Clean page at the bottom of this release.) 

1)  For "outright 'Organic" and "made with Organic [specified ingredients]"' product claims (eg. "Organic Lotion" or "Lotion made with Organic Oils") products must be certified under the USDA National Organic ProgramOP 'Organic'.(See http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/NOP)  

2)  For a more restricted "made with Organic [specified ingredients]" claim (eg. "Lotion made with Organic Aloe Vera"), or"Contains Organic Ingredients" claim, products must certify to either:  preferably one, the USDA NOP O70 "made with Organic" or under the "NSF-ANSI 305 " "Contains Organic Ingredients" standard. (See  http://www.nsf.org/consumer/newsroom/fact_gl_personalcare.aspd; or two, to another private standard of their choice such as NaTrueor BDIH, but must nonetheless comply fully with NSF-ANSI 305 criteria for organic content and allowed and disallowed processing of ingredients..)

3)  For 'Natural' product claims, eg. "Natural Lotion", products must be certified to one, preferably the Natural Product's Association Natural Standard Products certified under other foreign private standards must cross-certify to the relevant US standard and abide by the organic content requirement, processing and preservative allowances, and labeling restrictions, thereof.  ; or two, to another natural standard such as NaTrue or BDIH but which must nonetheless meet all criteria of the NPA standard and not contain NPA disallowed ingredients which other 'natural' standards may permit.

The Coming Clean Campaign has been working to clean up the natural and organic personal care industry for the past six years. To view Certification Commitment Contract, the NOSB Recommendation or for other information on the Coming Clean Campaign, go to: http://www.organicconsumers.org/bodycare/index.cfm