Saturday, September 5, 2015

Not-So-Honest Company?

Jessica Alba's The Honest Company is being sued for falsely labeling products "natural" when they're not. I'm not sure how successful this will be, since my understanding is that there's no regulation of the term "natural" - because how would you define that, when it comes to cosmetics? The fact that it's such an empty, slippery term is why it's so annoying (and so useful to advertisers). Is a surfactant derived from coconut oil (cocamidopropyl betaine, once of the ingredients targeted in the lawsuit) natural or not? Coconuts are natural, but the ingredients extracted from them might have been made in a lab (gasp!). And so forth.

This particular lawsuit, which you can read about here, is claiming that the company uses synthetic preservatives (well, good) and surfactants, and that their sunscreen is ineffective (more here).

What do you think? On the one hand, I am irritated by all this natural=better marketing, but on the other hand, stuff should have fucking preservatives in it, so let's not sue companies for being responsible and safe.

4 comments:

  1. I say this coupled with their whole suncreen mess means they need to rethink their labeling/marketing decisions.

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    1. I think so too, but I don't know if they will. They just seem to keep insisting that everything is healthy and good for children etc.

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  2. I hate them for creating this non-debate debate. My chemist friend Louise is always asking me why journalists have to set up everything as if it were a debate when SCIENTIFIC FACTS are non-negotiable. I always want to tell the pro-mold folks to go bathe in pond water if they hate "chemicals" so much.

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    1. Yeah, I know. Like I want them to go away, but not because they are using preservatives. Sigh. Anyway, doesn't your friend Louise know that scientists are all paid millions by Big Pharma and Big Agro and other Big things to hide the truth? OR IS SHE ONE OF THEM?

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