Remember Bonicca, that supercool nontoxic, anti-animal-testing, organic-committed company I wrote about way back when?
In blogosphere time, that means just a few months ago. Still, Bonicca‘s been busy — with important stuff!
Most of you reading green LA girl’re young, with no major health problems. You may buy cruelty free, organic goods, just cuz, like me, you feel goods should BE cruelty free and organic.
Can’t disagree with that. But these products also specifically help those who’re undergoing chemotherapy, for starters. Apparently, Bonicca‘s unscented, organic, all-natural lotions are tremendously soothing to people who’ve had to make dramatic changes to their lives to preserve their health.
I’m glad that Bonicca offers some real options, so that these people don’t have to choose between dry, flaky, painful skin and allergy-inflamed skin.
Some friends and I had a conversation not too long ago about how “normal” breast cancer is. One in 6 women will have to come to terms with it. Should we work to make what’s commonly described as the “ravages” of breast cancer accepted as “normal”? Or should we make normalizing surgeries — you know, breast restorations and such — more accesible to all women?
Certainly a different issue than one that Bonicca efficiently addresses. Everyone deserves to feel comfortable in their own skin. Bonicca offers all that comfort.
Bonicca. Oceanside, CA.
One of the press reports you linked to touches on several issues that have turned me into a skeptic about all beauty products, even Bonicca. Many products I used to buy in health food stores whose labels proclaimed all sorts of wonderful things about them turned out to have quite a few toxic ingredients in them. Not only is toxicity an issue, but there is no standardization among beauty product manufacturers regarding what qualifies as Organic, so many companies use the term on their label simply to charge more for their products.
I’m glad to see that Bonicca has signed the Breast Cancer Fund’s Compact for Safe Cosmetics- something most of the major cosmetic companies refuse to do because they’d have to change many of their formulas. I just wish I could see their ingredient lists for myself on their website, or better yet, see their product reviewed on the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep site.
Comment by aleta — February 18, 2006 @ 12:30 am
Aleta,
Yes, yes, yes! I’m glad that these issues are acknowledged by *someone* out there!
The current climate for natural and organic body care is very confusing and political. At the moment there are two, somewhat conflicting standards in our state. CA law holds that a personal care product can only call itself organic on the label (as in “organic lotion” or “organic toothpaste”) if over 70% of the ingredients by volume are certified organic. Water IS included in the volume and is considered NON-organic. This basically means that if a product is 31% water, it automatically can’t be called organic (a very difficult standard for water-based personal care products, and one that has led to alot of suspect formulation by big health food store brands who use “organic flower water” to try to get around this strict standard). However, the other 30% of ingredients can be anything, including toxic chemicals. The new “organic” line by the Healing Garden is a great example – it’s 71% reconstituted organic aloe vera gel powder (99% water, 1% aloe powder), with the very next ingredients being sodium laureth sulfate, parabens, phthalates, etc.
Recently (Nov. 2005) the USDA re-extended its organic certification to personal care products, but the standard is very different from CA. For the USDA certification, the product must be 95% certified organic by volume, with water and salt EXCLUDED from the volume. The other 5% of ingredients must be natural. This brings up a strange situation where, currently, the only lotions and body washes that qualify for the USDA certification contain so much water (to keep costs down) that they technically cannot be called organic in CA. Meeting both standards is not impossible, but would make the product so expensive that few could afford it.
In the end it still takes a very educated consumer, and careful label reading, to make sure you are getting a good product. Bonicca ingredients ARE actually available for every product on our website, but are found in the store product descriptions, which makes them a little hard to track down(ex: http://www.bonicca.com/cgi-bin/ccp51/cp-app.cgi?pg=prod&ref=ltn_CaliforniaCoast). We will be placing a more prominent link on the main page — after all, we have nothing to hide! Our products are all natural, paraben free, sulfate free, phthalate free, cruelty free, and based on real organic aloe vera juice. We also petitioned about 4 months ago to be placed on the ewg’s skindeep database, and should be appearing soon.
Comment by Kim — February 19, 2006 @ 9:33 am
Aleta — Thanks for pointing that out :) Looks like a more prominent link on Bonicca’s site would help out both concerned customers and Bonicca itself, which certainly seems to be addressing many of the issues other companies have declined to participate in.
Comment by Siel — February 22, 2006 @ 10:43 am