According to Wikipedia, Greenwashing is the “practice of companies disingenuously spinning their products and policies as environmentally friendly”. As a result of this unethical practice, consumers are lured into buying products because they believe that they are healthy and natural when in fact the exact opposite is true. How often do you go to the store and pay more for a product because it says “natural” or “organic”? Unless the product is USDA certified organic, you may be the victim of greenwashing!
How is greenwashing accomplished?
There are numerous ways that greenwashing is accomplished. In beauty products, companies will very often list botanical extracts or ‘aqueous infusions’ at the top of their ingredient lists. They will bury synthetic ingredients that really make up the bulk of the product down lower in the list. Although it is prohibited under international organic standards, these companies will then count the water component of the organic mixture as organic. This artificially boosts the organic content of the product to over the 70% mark that is required for the product to be counted as organic. So, while you think you have found natural remedies for acne or natural hair products, you are really using products that are loaded with harmful and toxic chemicals.
Another common strategy is to list the source of chemicals to give people a false sense of security regarding their purity and safety. As an example, the chemical olefin sulfonate would be listed as olefin sulfonate (coconut oil). (Or, if they were being really tricky, organic coconut oil) What the manufacturers fail to mention is that the method of synthesis is the sulfonation of olefins. In other words, olefin sulfonate is created from coconut oil my the reaction of petrochemicals with boiling sulfuric acid. Does this sound healthy to you?
To avoid becoming the victim of greenwashing, you should read labels very carefully. If you see chemicals anywhere in the ingredients you should proceed with caution!