From Inside a Company
To get a better look at what it’s like from a
company’s perspective and to learn more about
how developing a natural brand works, we spoke
with Faith Frankenfeild of Faith Aromatherapy, a
line that focuses on naturally derived products.
Faith started her company in 2013 when she was
looking for safer deodorant options that would
work for her children. As it turns out, developing
green products is just as complicated as picking
them out.
One of the challenges she faced when developing
her line for commercial sale was that when you’re
moving to a mass-market setting, it can be a bit
of a fight to keep the same ingredients. While
companies may not start out with the intent to
greenwash, it’s possible that for some it happens
along the way. Faith explained that when she was
working with a mass-market she was faced with
pressure to change her ingredients to something
that wouldn’t quite fit her brand. “It’s interesting
because you create a formula and take it to a
manufacturer, and then the people working with
the manufacturer have their own standards.”
“I felt like even though the manufacturer had
worked in semi-green companies, he was still
trying to get me to compromise on preservatives.
That was a big deal, finding the right preservative
system. Since parabens have become
controversial, people have started replacing
them with an ingredient called Phenoxyethanol.
But it’s still a questionable preservative and the
consumer doesn’t know that.” Faith noted that
instead, they wanted to use something that was
better understood so they used a fermented
radish based preservative. It doesn’t smell
but it works similarly to a probiotic. With that
experience in mind, it’s easy to understand how
some smaller companies can lose their true green
identity as they grow.
To make matters for consumers even more
complicated, Faith also warned against what’s
essentially the polar opposite of greenwashing
but just as important- organic-ing. While it rarely
happens with large companies, it sometimes
happens that you’ll see products that claim
to be super organic and natural, but it turns
out to be the ones that contain little to no
preservatives. This drives home the importance
of safe preservatives to Faith, “An organic but
unpreserved product can be just as dangerous
as a product full of pesticides due to bacteria and
fungus growth that is invisible to the eye. It’s a
really hard balance, you want to have a healthy
product but you also want to be safe.” While
you may have a completely organic sustainable
product with no preservatives, it will have a very
short shelf life even when refrigerated. “It’s really
important for the consumer to realize that you still
need some sort of preservative for a product.”
So what should you be looking for? “I think
understanding labels; sometimes I look at labels
and think ‘these are not necessary ingredients.’
The best products are the ones with the most
extracts, the most essential oils, and the rawest
ingredients, with a few surfactants and one
preservative, two max.”
Designers- let’s do this section with a slightly
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the rest of the text and the conclusion
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