Natural or Just Natural Deception?

I happened to be doing a little web browsing this morning and came across another soap blogger's blog that I thought was very interesting. Valerie, at Real.Simple.Soap., posted about having visited a local Lush store at the mall and how she started reading the ingredients on their soap when the clerk approached her and tried to educate her on their "natural" products, etc., etc. You can read her post here: (http://realsimplesoap.blogspot.com/2009/03/little-consumer-deception.html) You know the type I’m talking about. We all (that is, soapers) have visited these type of stores at one time or another just to check things out.

I, too, have tried to educate these clerks and it’s like they’ve been brainwashed by the company into believing their products are truly all natural and good for you. I’ve gotten so frustrated some times trying to talk to these young ladies, but they look at you like you’re some kind of nut and try to keep you quiet so the other customers don’t hear you. (I actually spoke loud on purpose.) It’s really not their fault. They’re mostly young girls who are very impressionable and are just doing their job, as per the company for whom they work.

I had a request from a customer last year who wanted to buy a few things for her niece for Christmas. The niece was in love with Lush products and my customer wanted me to make a body butter like Lush. I went to Lush’s website to check this particular item out and was mortified at what I found. Needlesstosay, I reported back to my customer that I would make a body butter with a similar scent, but that it would not be like Lush. It would be much better. And believe it or not, her neice really liked the product.

How do they get away with this type of advertising is beyond me. If it were you or I advertising like that with all those chemicals, the hounddogs would be all over us. Lush is not the only one out there making all these claims though. Have you ever read the ingredient list on BBW's hand cream? I have and half of the stuff I had to look up to find out what it really was. Like Valerie, I was amazed at what I found. And right after that long list of ingredients, they state "finished product is not tested on animals." But they bottle and market it for human use! Amazing!

You and I, as consumers and/or soapmakers, need to educate ourselves and others. We need to make people think and be well informed when making purchases that effect our overall health and well being.

Thanks, Valerie, for your information!