Brussels-based Natural and Organic Cosmetic Association (NaTrue) and US-based Quality Assurance International (QAI), are partnering for the mutual recognition of their respective “made with organic ingredients” standards for personal care products.

American National Standard

NSF/ANSI 305 Made with Organic Personal Care Products is a consensus-based standard for personal care products featuring organic ingredient specifications. NSF/ANSI 305 was recently adopted as an American National Standard by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). It was developed by NSF International with the participation of key stakeholder groups, including organic personal care manufacturers, trade associations, regulators and organic product retailers.

The NSF/ANSI 305 standard allows “made with organic” claims for products with organic content of 70 percent or more that comply with all other requirements of the standard. Products covered by the standard include rinse-off and leave-on personal care and cosmetic products, as well as oral care and personal hygiene products. The standard specifies materials, processes, production criteria, and conditions that shall be met in order for made with personal care products to make organic label and marketing claims.

Quality Assurance International (QAI) is a USDA-accredited certifying agent who provides organic certification of products within the NSF/ANSI 305 standard.

Similar objectives

NaTrue, which launched its natural cosmetics label last year, just announced that 100 products have been certified as of February 1st 2009.

According NaTrue the partnership was made possible as both the NaTrue-Label and the NSF/ANSI 305 standard, whilst not identical, share “the same fundamental objective”.

In order to help manufacturers to demonstrate compliance with both standards, QAI and NaTrue are developing a guidance document to identify the differences and analyze gaps.

By consolidating two certification processes into one, this initiative is expected to create important cost-savings and time- savings for interested manufacturers.