Natural cosmetics - what is it?

In Europe, there is no uniform legal requirement, which is to be understood as organic or natural cosmetics. An exception is Austria, with the Austrian food book. This contains a common definition of what organic and what natural cosmetics is:

Natural cosmetics are products made from natural raw materials of plant, animal and mineral origin. The raw materials should come as far as possible from organic farming.
Only physical, microbiological or enzymatic methods can be used for the extraction and further processing of these natural substances. Chemical recovery or processing steps are not allowed.

In natural cosmetics may not be used:

Synthetic dyes, ethoxylated raw materials, silicones, paraffins and other petroleum products, synthetic fragrances, dead vertebrate components and raw materials derived from wild collection of endangered plants.

Only cosmetics that meet these criteria may be referred to as "natural cosmetics" or in the same direction.

Overall, controlled natural cosmetics include the following criteria: The raw materials are naturally pure and of high ecological quality. The active ingredients contained are environmentally friendly. The preservatives used are of natural origin or nature-identical. Natural cosmetics do not contain any synthetic fragrances, dyes or silicones. The respective raw materials and the products themselves have not been exposed to radioactive radiation or genetically engineered. In addition, no animal experiments were carried out.

The best known labels for natural cosmetics are currently BDIH / COSMOS, NaTrue, EcoCert and ICADA.

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