Ingredients

It is possible to create skin care products containing only oils, fats and waxes using 100% organic ingredients.

However, products such as lotions, creams, shampoos and conditioners that contain herbal infusions and floral waters must also contain ingredients such as emulsifiers, surfactants and some kind of preservative system - without them they couldn't be made, wouldn't work, and wouldn't be safe to use.

Although many of these ingredients are available from natural sources, they are not available in an organic form at the present time. Even common ingredients such as glycerin are not yet available as certified organics. We are working closely with ingredient suppliers to develop organic forms of many of these ingredients to be introduced as soon as possible.

Under EC legislation all ingredients have to be given their Latin, INCI name (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients). Some manufacturers use this to disguise or hide the true nature of the ingredients they use. We use truly natural and where possible organic ingredients in our products.

The glossary on the main Green People website lists all ingredients that we use and gives their common names and sources.

Some ingredients do sound like chemicals even though they are from natural sources. Examples include foaming agents, e.g. Decyl Glucoside derived from corn; emulsifiers, e.g. Cetearyl alcohol - not an alcohol but fatty waxes derived from plant oils; or preservatives, e.g. Phenoxyethanol, which are necessary to give the product at least 30 months shelf life.

Most of our organic baby products and children's products are vegan and carry the Vegan Society logo on the packaging and on the web site detail page.

The following products are not suitable for vegans because they contain beeswax, milk protein or propolis:

- Baby Salve
- Children's Sun Lotion SPF25 Lavender
- Children's Sun Lotion SPF25 No Scent
- Baby Foaming Cleanser
- Soothe & Calm Baby Balm

All of our products are suitable for vegetarians.

In order to claim that an ingredient is organic it has to produced to internationally recognised standards and be certified as organic by an approved body such as the Soil Association or Organic Food Federation.

Unfortunately, there are some plant materials that are not as yet certified by one of these bodies and so we cannot claim that they are organic even though they may have been grown without the use of agricultural chemicals.

Examples include vegetable glycerin, seaweed and Spirulina, and some essential oils such as sandalwood, benzoin and myrrh. Green People are continually searching for organic alternatives to non-organic ingredients and will change to organic as soon as these become available.

Until the fairly recently it was believed that the skin was an efficient barrier that prevented external substances from entering the body. This theory was challenged back in the 1960's with the development of the drug DMSO which was shown to transport other substances through the skin barrier and into the bloodstream.

The ability of many chemicals to be absorbed trough the skin is now widely accepted and in some cases is used as a route of medication. Drugs such as nicotine and female hormones are now routinely administered in the form of a skin patch and are readily absorbed into the body.

Studies have shown that most substances can be absorbed through the skin and that up to 60% of any substance applied to the skin may enter the body through this route.

No, none of Green People's products contain parabens.

Glycerin is produced during soap manufacturing and has several valuable properties in skincare products. Firstly it is a humectant, which means that it helps to retain moisture in creams and lotions. The earliest known hand cream was made from equal parts of glycerin and rosewater.

Secondly, glycerin is an emollient, which means it makes the skin feel softer and smoother and helps to reduce wrinkles. This is achieved partly through coating the shin with a thin layer of oily wax, and partly by reducing water loss from the skin.

Glycerin is also a solvent and helps different ingredients used in many creams and lotions mix together.

Glycerin is produced by adding alkalis to fats and fixed oils. It is an important by-product of the soap making industry and can be produced from almost any fat, animal or vegetable.

All of the glycerin used in Organic Babies and Organic Children products comes from either coconut or palm oil and is guaranteed to be of non-animal origin.

A herbal infusion is made by pouring boiling or nearly-boiling water onto a quantity of plant material which may be either fresh or dried. The mixture is then stirred and covered and allowed to stand for a period of time, typically 10 to 15 minutes before being strained.

Herbal infusions are often used for their therapeutic effects rather than their scent or aroma. A floral water on the other-hand is a by-product of the process used to produce essential oils and is usually far more concentrated than an infusion.

A good example of a floral water is rose water, widely used as a perfume in many skin preparations.

Herbs can be in several forms including fresh juices, dried powders, infusions, concentrates and other types of extract. Most of these retain the broad spectrum of ingredients found in the original plant material and consequently have the same or similar therapeutic properties.

Essential oils are made by extracting the volatile fractions of plant through the process of distillation. They are very highly concentrated and generally reproduce the odour and taste of the starting material.

They also have strong antiseptic and antibacterial properties and can help to preserve other ingredients from deterioration.

The citrus seed extracts used in some Green People formulations form part of our preservative system. All products which contain both oil and water based ingredients such as creams and lotions have the ability to support bacterial growth and need to contain some form of preservative.

Green People prefer to use natural ingredients wherever possible and using this citrus seed extract means we can use lesser quantities of preservatives such as potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate.

Although they have similar names, have similar functions and can both be extracted from the same plant source of coconut oil, these two ingredients are quite different.

Sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS) is an anionic surfactant used as a cleanser and foaming agent in a wide range of shampoos, bubble-baths, liquid soaps and toothpastes. It is a known skin irritant and may cause sensitisation when used over a period of time. The molecular structure of SLS is small enough to allow it to penetrate to the lower layers of the skin where it is most irritating.

Ammonium lauryl sulphate (ALS) is also an anionic surfactant used as a cleansing foaming agent but has a different molecular structure. This difference means that the ALS molecule is much larger than that of SLS and so it cannot penetrate the upper layers of the skin, making it much less irritating to the skin.

Organic Babies and Organic Children's products do not contain SLS at all, and Green People only use ALS in a very few products, all of which are designed to be rinsed off shortly after application.

We do not use fluoride in toothpaste because we do not believe that medication should be taken via toothpaste when cleaning the teeth. Fluoride (which if taken via toothpaste enters the bloodstream, which has nothing to do with it coming into contact with the teeth) has a hardening effect on the bones.

This makes bones more likely to crack and break. Hardening of the bones is also very negative, for example, for sufferers of Osteoporosis. Therefore by offering toothpaste without fluoride we are leaving the supplementation of fluoride as a choice rather than forcing our customers to take medication that they may prefer not to.

If they want to take extra fluoride they can buy fluoride tablets. Anybody with a varied diet will anyway ingest adequate fluoride.

The term 'perfume' causes a lot of confusion in skincare products. Technically, perfume is anything added to a product in order to give it a smell or odour. The term perfume or parfum does not indicate to the consumer whether the ingredients are natural or synthetic, nor how many ingredients are used - some contain as many as 200 different chemicals.

Synthetic perfumes are amongst the most frequent allergens and they are frequently left out of hypoallergenic formulations.

Organic Babies and Organic Children's products do not contain any synthetic perfumes and the only scents used are pure floral waters and essential oils. To enable customers to avoid specific ingredients we list every ingredient used in all of our products rather than use blanket terms such as 'perfume'.

These ingredients are amongst those which are known to be allergenic and irritating. They also release small amounts of formaldehyde when they degrade. Formaldehyde is strongly irritating and is also known to be carcinogenic.