Surely natural means natural – right? Or does it? When it comes to skin care (and in fact a multitude of manufactured products) there are often a plethora of claims where the products are ‘natural’.
A short while ago I had the privilege of meeting the manufacturer of a health care range. This lady discussed how her products were made, highlighting some of the ingredients used across the range. The manufacturer went to extensive lengths to ensure that the ingredients used were as pure as possible i.e. that the products were processed as little as possible to protect the beneficial factors so important for the body.
There was a discussion regarding particular ingredients and their cost of production. The cost of one particular ingredient was outrageous however it was justified because of how the raw product was hand harvested and the desired byproduct gently extracted ensuring utmost purity and integrity of the product – as you can imagine a very labour intensive product. This was compared to how many other companies use a similar byproduct (from the same raw ingredient), however the byproduct is harvested by chemical extraction which ensures the product is substantially cheaper – in fact over 1000% cheaper.
But get this …. Both products claim to be ‘natural’ – go figure.
How can the company using chemical extraction claim that their product is ‘natural’ considering some ingredients went through a vigorous chemical process? What’s natural about that? Apparently it’s because the ingredient was derived from a raw product which was originally natural i.e. like a eucalypt leaf or a rose petal. How crazy is that?
The Oxford Dictionary states the word ‘natural’ to be “existing in or derived from nature; not made or caused by humankind”. I suppose then by this definition a product which has been chemically extracted from a eucalypt leaf could be termed ‘natural’.
But what are the effects of consuming such products? … who knows? Perhaps it’s too soon to tell, or perhaps the chronic disease epidemics in the western world are being assisted by these chemical supplements?
