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Certified Organic since 2006
What Is Actually in Your Skincare?
Most of us reach for products with good intentions. But the words on the label — natural, clean, botanical — don't always mean what we hope they do.
There is a word that appears on a great number of skincare products: natural. It tends to arrive alongside earthy colours and drawings of plants, and it carries a quiet promise — that what's inside is gentle, honest, and good for you.
The truth is less reassuring. Under current regulations, a product needs only 1% naturally derived ingredients to carry the word "natural" on its label. The rest can be whatever the brand chooses. And even that single natural ingredient may have been grown in fields treated with pesticides and weed killers — chemicals that don't simply disappear when the plant is harvested.
A recent study found that exposure to farming pesticides carries a cancer risk comparable to cigarette smoking. It's worth asking, then, what "clean" really means when the ingredients themselves were grown in those conditions.
This is the quiet contradiction at the heart of modern skincare. We have become very good at talking about clean beauty. We have been less careful about defining it.
To begin with
What Organic Actually Means
Organic, when it is properly certified, is not a marketing word. It describes ingredients that were grown without synthetic pesticides, weed killers, chemical fertilisers, or genetically modified plants. The care begins in the soil — long before the product reaches your hands.
Organic farming works with the land rather than against it. It tends to the health of the soil, protects local plants and animals, and avoids the build-up of synthetic chemicals that conventional farming can leave behind. Research also suggests that plants grown this way contain more antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals than those grown with the help of chemicals.
Because organic ingredients haven't been treated with harsh chemicals, they tend to sit more gently on the skin — less likely to cause redness or reactions. This makes certified organic products a considered choice for sensitive skin, reactive skin, and even the skin of a newborn.
A useful distinction
Organic and Natural Are Not the Same Thing
These two words are often used as if they mean the same thing. They do not.
Certified organic
Natural
—Grown without pesticides or chemical fertilisers
—Verified by an independent body, every year
—Covers farming, production, and packaging
—Must meet a defined organic ingredient threshold
—No genetically modified ingredients
—No rules on how the plants were grown
—No independent checks or verification
—May still include ingredients grown with pesticides
—Can carry the label with as little as 1% natural content
—No requirement for transparency on other ingredients
A certified organic brand has submitted to external scrutiny and been held to account. A brand that calls itself "natural" has made a design decision. The distance between those two things is considerable.
On rarity
Why So Few Brands Actually Do This
Making an effective skincare product is already a careful, demanding process. Making one where every ingredient is certified organic is harder still.
Not all plants can be sourced organically at any meaningful scale. The ones that can may not work well with other ingredients, or may not behave the way a formula needs them to. Many of the processes that conventional skincare relies on — to preserve, to stabilise, to create texture — are not available to an organic formulator. The options are genuinely fewer.
Then there is the matter of certification itself. Maintaining it means going through a full independent review every year — a process that takes real time, real cost, and a sustained commitment to doing things properly. Most brands find it easier to place a leaf on the label and move on.
2002
When the first organic skincare standards were established
1%
Natural content needed to legally call a product "natural"
70%+
Organic content required for BioGro certification
This is why phrases like "made with organic ingredients" appear so often. They sound meaningful. But they do not mean the product is certified — only that some of its ingredients might be. The rest remains largely unaccounted for.
Carol Priest
A Standard Set Early
In 2006, when organic certification for skincare was still a new idea and no one was requiring it, Carol Priest chose to pursue it anyway. It was not the easier path. It was simply the right one.
Certified since 2006
Carol Priest · BioGro Organic Certified
From the soil where ingredients are grown to the product that reaches your hands, every step of production is held to BioGro's organic standards. No harmful synthetic chemicals. Responsible manufacturing. Full accountability, renewed each year.
BioGro is New Zealand's most trusted certifier for organic products. It built its name in food and wine — industries where the rules are strict because what enters the body is taken seriously. Carol Priest holds itself to those same standards.
Other certification bodies, such as COSMOS, have done good work in bringing more order to the organic beauty space. BioGro's requirements go further — covering ingredient sourcing, how things are made, and the broader environmental impact of production. It is a thorough process, and it is repeated every year.
A brief history
Before 2002
No independent standards existed for organic skincare. Brands could describe themselves however they liked, with nothing to support the claim.
2002
The first certification standards for organic skincare begin to take shape, offering a way to verify what a product actually contains.
2006
Carol Priest becomes one of the first skincare brands in New Zealand to earn BioGro organic certification — a decision made before it was expected of anyone.
Today
The certification is renewed each year. The commitment has not changed.
Before you buy
How to Read a Label More Honestly
The next time you consider a skincare product, look past the colour and the language on the front. Look for a certification mark. Then take a moment to understand what that certifier actually requires.
Certifier logo present This is the real thing. Look up the certifier to understand their standards — not all are equally rigorous.
"Made with organic ingredients" Some ingredients may be certified; the product as a whole is not. Ask how much and by whom.
"Natural" or "clean" These words carry no regulated meaning. Read the full ingredient list instead.
The beauty industry is, slowly, becoming more honest about what it makes and how. But for now, certification remains the only thing that makes a brand's claims verifiable. Without it, you are relying on the story a brand has chosen to tell about itself.
When you find a product that carries genuine organic certification, it is worth pausing to consider what that represents — the years of careful sourcing, the annual reviews, the deliberate refusal to take the easier route.
The brands that chose to hold themselves to this standard early — before anyone required it of them — made a quiet decision that still shapes what lands in your hands today.
* Mammoser, G. (2024, July 25). Pesticides may raise your risk of cancer as much as smoking. Healthline. healthline.com
** Barański et al. (2014). Higher antioxidant and lower cadmium concentrations and lower incidence of pesticide residues in organically grown crops. The British Journal of Nutrition, 112(5), 794–811. doi.org/10.1017/S0007114514001366