Bubble & Bee now Certified Organic!

We did it! Bubble & Bee is now Certified Organic!

It's taken us a while now, but we did it! What does it mean to be certified organic? 

Well, here are a few things that we do as a certified organic processing facility.

Extensive Paperwork Has to be Submitted Every Year

Keep a detailed paper trail

For all our products designated as "100% organic" "organic" or "made with organic", we keep a detailed paper trail of where each ingredient came from, and who certified it as organic. All of these ingredients have to be grown without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and processed without chemicals. For each batch we make, we write down the supplier of each ingredient, the invoice date, the invoice number, and the certifying agency. The batch sheets are then kept on file.

Have an organic pest control plan

This means we don't use synthetic pesticides on our facility and use organic methods of pest control, like regular sweeping and removal of debris in and around our facility, and the use of certain essential oils and herbs to repel insects.

Ensuring organic integrity

This requirement isn't hard for us, as most of our ingredients are certified organic. However, we have to make sure that every ingredient is marked organic or conventional. For instance, we use both organic and conventional orange essential oil. We use the organic in the lip balms and bath salts, and the conventional in the soaps and shower gels. We have a big orange label on the conventional that says "CONVENTIONAL: shower gels and soaps only!" That way, there's no chance that the conventional doesn't accidentally get in to something it's not supposed to. We store herbs and other bulk ingredients in air-tight containers so there is no co-mingling of organic and non-organic. Scoops and utensils are washed between uses so there is no possibility of cross contamination.

Labeling requirements.

Our products can now bear the USDA certified organic seal! We also must include our certifying agency, the Utah State Department of Agriculture on a specific portion of the label.

Cleaning logs.

Every time we vaccuum a floor, wash the mixer, or wipe down the shipping table we have to record it in the log. There, we state the date, the cleaning method used, any cleaning materials used, and who did the cleaning. Any surface that comes in to contact with an organic product has to be thoroughly rinsed so there is no trace of cleansing residue. We typically use organic castille soap, organic sunflower oil, or organic vinegar for cleaning so we're always clean and green!

Shipping logs.

Any time we ship out a product, we keep a log of where it's going and what batch it was from. That way, if someone came to us with an invoice number, we could tell you which batch it was from, where each organic ingredient was from, and who certified that ingredient.

Production map of every product we make.

For each certified organic product, we have to create a production map. This describes where the ingredients are stored, where in our facility it's made, how it's made, how it's packaged, and labeled from start to finish.

Product Profile Sheet

We submit a product profile sheet to the department of agriculture that details each product, it's composition, and its label.

It's a lot of work, but we're proud of the extra work we do to make sure that our products are some of the cleanest and greenest around!

Hair Care Myths: Exposed

Billions of marketing dollars are spent year after year to sell cheap chemicals as hair "care" products. Most of them are unneeded, and even dangerous. Today, I've exposed five hair care myths:

Myth #1: You can repair hair.

You've seen the commercial: "X shampoo strengthens hair, getting rid of split ends and repairing damage." Hair is dead. There is no way to repair it. Once you have a split end, it's split. Once it's damaged, there's no fixing it. It's like saying you'd be able to take an old dried out piece of driftwood and "re-hydrate" it to make it look new again. It's just not possible. So, how are companies able to claim they "repair" hair? These shampoos and conditioners use chemicals that coat the hair shaft, making it feel or look like it's repaired, but underneath it's still the same old strand of hair. It's like dipping the driftwood in tar and saying that it's been repaired. Yes, the damage may be hidden, but underneath it all, it's still an old piece of wood. So the next time you see one of those TV commercials about "repairing hair" just replace "repair" with "coat with chemicals" and you'll get the true picture.

Myth #2: The concept of "Dry" hair

Okay, let's break this down here. What's the opposite of dry? Wet, obviously. What causes something to be wet? Well, water, of course. So, when you're "moisturizing" hair, are you adding water to it? No. You wouldn't want that because when hair is wet, the hair shaft is very weak because the cuticle has absorbed water and the overall bonds of the keratin are weakened. What about oil? Is it oil we're moisturizing with? No, it's not that either. Oily hair isn't any stronger or more manageable. Oily hair is dull and limp. So, "dry" (meaning waterless and minimal oil) hair is actually a good thing. So, what are we doing when we "moisturize" hair? Same as "repairing" it. We're just coating it with chemicals so that it feels softer. Hair doesn't need to be moisturized like skin does. A little bit of oil helps add sheen to hair, but you don't need much.

So, what are we really feeling when we say we have "dry" hair? There is such a thing as damaged hair. There is wiry hair. There is frizzy hair. But there is no such thing as "dry" hair.

Myth #3: Your natural hair color is unattractive.

Dishwater blonde anyone? Yes, that happens to be my natural hair color. The corporate cosmetic conglomerates and their decades of marketing efforts would have me feeling mousy for parading around with my (shock) natural hair color visible to the entire world. You need some "drama," "depth," or "luminescence" to your hair color in order to look beautiful, they would have me feel. I notice all the girls with their fashionable blondes, streaks, frosts, weaves, ombres and other expensive color treatments. And for a moment, I do have to admit that I feel inferior for not coloring my hair. But then I have to remind myself that I'm only feeling this way because billions of dollars are spent every year to make me feel this way.

Your natural hair color, yes, even gray, is beautiful. What's even more beautiful is not having to subject yourself to toxic chemicals every six weeks. Permanent hair dyes contain carcinogenic acrylamines, which are absorbed through the skin during the hair treatment. Genetically, some individuals are able to produce very efficient protective enzymes that render the acrylamines harmless and eliminate them quickly through the urine. In others, the process is less effective, and these people are at risk of bladder cancer.

Other chemicals found in hair dyes are phenylenediamine, heavy metals such as mercury, and coal tar. (Check out this great article for more on this and stay tuned for tomorrows post for more chemicals to avoid.)

Growing old is not a sin. Gray hair is a badge of honor. You've made it this far through life, why not wear it with pride?! Not quite ready for that? Henna is the most safe and natural option out there. And hey--it was good enough for Lucille Ball. And you doesn't love Lucy?!

Of course, I respect every person's decisions to do what they want to look and feel their best. Just make sure that you're not coloring your hair because you're ashamed of your natural hair color. 

Myth #4: Your hair needs to be straight.

Do you ever see a shampoo commercial featuring someone with tight curls? No. It's usually straight or slightly wavy hair that glistens and gleams under carefully-placed lights for the camera. For years these commercials have brainwashed (some of) us in to thinking that curly or kinky hair is unhealthy and un-sexy so they can sell us straightening irons, chemical straightening treatments, and heavy conditioners. I hear so many women who think that they need to condition their tight curls because they don't feel soft. They think that their hair is "dry" when really it's just coarse hair. Just because your hair doesn't feel or look like corn silk, doesn't mean it isn't healthy hair. It's just the nature of your hair--embrace it. Don't subject yourself to the marketing hype and gallons of harmful chemicals that you expose yourself to "conditioning" or straightening your hair.

Myth #5: Your hair needs vitamins.

Remember, hair is dead. Vitamins do nothing for hair. Vitamins are only beneficial if they're absorbed in to the body, a living thing. The body uses vitamins in metabolic pathways to create energy, fight free-radicals, or build or repair tissue. Pro-V, Vitamin B-12, Vitamin E and all these scientific "vitamin complex" ingredients--they're just in the shampoo for label for appeal. You're just pouring them on and washing them down the drain.

Find out our tips for Natural Hair Care Here.

Lavender & Tea Tree Estrogenic????

You may have heard reports that Lavender & Tea Tree essential oils are estrogenic and caused young boys to grow breasts. Concerned myself with xenoestrogens, I decided, of course, to look in to the subject.

Even though the story is all over the news and the Internet, there is actually only ONE study that makes these claims. So, I took a closer look at the study.

Originally published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the study details three young boys who had developed gynecomastia (breasts). The doctors treating the boys learned that each of them were using products with lavender or tea tree essential oils, and once they stopped using these products, the breasts went away. The researchers then took these case studies and decided to test the essential oils on human tissue in a lab. According to their study, the essential oils acted estrogenically, and thus could have been the cause of the breast development in the boys. However, I, along with numerous researchers and doctors have found some major flaws in the study.

Before I get in to more specifics--just a quick note. Looking at the footnotes of the study, you'll notice that all of the doctors who conducted the research are sponsored by numerous drug companies. 'Nuff said.

Three doctors (Kathi J. Kemper, M.D., M.P.H., Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157; Aviva J. Romm, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510; Paula Gardiner, M.D., M.P.H., Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215) wrote a commentary on the study:

The study by Henley et al. (Feb. 1 issue)¹ raises many questions. Product names were not provided. Did the authors contact manufacturers to report concerns or ask about constituents? The variability, adulteration, and contamination of herbal products have been widely reported,^2,3 as have discrepancies between labels and contents.⁴ Plastic containers may contain phthalates, known endocrine disrupters.⁵ What was actually in the products cited in this report?

None of the hormonal testing showed abnormal results, except in Patient 2, who had elevated levels of testosterone (not estrogen). There was no report on ultrasound examination or needle biopsy, nor were subsequent weight changes reported. Might the patients' gynecomastia have reflected another pathophysiological process that resolved spontaneously?

Traditional use and clinical trials have not suggested estrogenic effects of tea tree or lavender oil, though estrogenic effects have been reported for other essential oils and plants. Are occupational exposures to lavender and tea tree associated with estrogenic symptoms? In vitro testing alone is not adequate grounds for indicting traditionally used products and may raise public fear.

The doctors bring up a few great points here, number one in my book is, what other estrogen mimickers were present in these products used on the young boys? Parabens? Phalates? The ingredients are not documented and could be a number of things--even from using bottles made with BPA.

But what about the laboratory tests they did on petri dishes of human cells? If you look carefully at their study, you'll notice they didn't apply pure lavender or tea tree essential oil on the cells they were testing, they used a solvent to dilute the oils. The solvent is dimethylsulfoxide---which, as it turns out, is an estrogen mimicker! (as documented here.)

The bottom line is that lavender and tea tree essential oils have been used for thousands of years with no history or evidence of estrogen mimicry. They're probably the most widely used essential oils in baby products, so of course the three boys in the study were using them. If lavender and tea tree essential oils were truly estrogen mimickers, we would have known about their effects long ago.

Sunblock Recommendations

I'm in the process of developing a Bubble & Bee Organic sunblock...but in the meantime, here are my recommendations:

Badger Balm

Soleo

Mexitan

Look for sunscreens that use non-nano Zinc Oxide and Titanium Dioxide as the active sunblocking ingredient. Nanoparticles can absorb in to your bloodstream and skin, causing unknown side effects--they haven't been studied much!

Stay away from chemical sunscreens like avobenzene (for more chemicals, check out this previous blog post).

And of course, look for as many organic ingredients in the "inactive" ingredients section as well. Our sunblock will have 100% organic inactive ingredients, and we're going to use non-nano Zinc Oxide as the active sunblocking ingredient. Great stuff. We have to put it through a lot of testing in order to get an "SPF" and we're hoping to launch it in time for next Spring. Stay tuneD!

Vegetable Emulsifying Wax

I've talked about how, although it's a great starting point for learning about chemicals in personal care products, the Cosmetics Databse is not the end-all source for determining product safety. Today, I'm going to show you how an ingredient that scores a "0" in the database, should really score much much higher.

Vegetable emulsifying wax is used in a lot of products, from lotions to conditioners--even makeup--to make oil and water combine in to a lotion form. It's the emulsifier of choice for home crafters and larger companies alike because it's easy to work with and it's relatively cheap. At first glance it looks natural (after all, it's made up from "vegetable" material, right?) but once you learn what it really is, it's not so great after all.

I did some digging and found out what vegetable emulsifying wax is actually comprised of:
Cetearyl Alcohol (a blend of cetyl and steareth alcohol)
Polysorbate 60
PEG-150 Stearate
Steareth-20
Let's look at these chemicals one by one.

Cetearyl Alcohol
Although cetearyl alcohol scores a "0" risk score in the Cosmetics Database, the two ingredients that it's made up of, Cetyl and Steareth Alcohol, both score a "1" for a mild risk of skin irritation and tumor formation at high doses. Not a terrible score, and I'm not particularly outraged by this ingredient. However, is it a synthetically produced chemical? Yes. Is it truly natural? No.

Polysorbate 60
Also scores a "1" risk score for possibly being a reproductive toxin and for tumor formation at high doses. When it's in small amounts in a lotion, you're probably pretty safe. That said, it's the same story as the cetearyl alcohol--it's not truly natural and it's still a chemical.

PEG-150 Stearate
This is where it gets hairy. PEG is short for polyethylene glycol. Polyethylene glycol is an ethoxylated compound, meaning that it's been processed with ethylene oxide, a known human carcinogen. Traces of this compound can be left in the product, along with byproducts such as 1,4-dioxane, also a known carcinogen. (Read more about the latest 1,4-dioxane scandal here.) PEG-150 Stearate scores a 4-7 risk score in the cosmetics database, "depending on product usage." So, in a product that would remain on your skin, like lotion or deodorant, I'd imagine that they'd give it a "7".

Steareth-20
Even though this ingredient only scores a "1" in the database, it too is an ethoxylated compound, and can also contain traces of ethylene oxide and 1,4-dioxane. It's created by taking stearyl alcohol (a naturally-ocurring fatty alcohol) and combining it with ethylene oxide. The number following the "steareth" is how many units of ethylene oxide reacted with the stearyl alcohol. So, steareth-20 has been reacted with 20 units of ethylene oxide. There are a lot of steareths that range from 2 on up. Steareth-20 is the highest--meaning it's been processed with the highest amount of ethylene oxide.

So, how does this happen? How does an ingredient with all these chemicals end up with a "0" risk score in the Cosmetics Databse?

How this happens
The Cosmetics Database is just that--a database. When an ingredient is entered in to the database, it searches about 50 other databases for safety information based on the key words of the ingredient. When "vegetable emulsifying wax" is entered, the database searches for studies with those words. It doesn't take in to account the fact that there are separate ingredients within the one ingredient. There are little to no studies on "vegetable emulsifying wax" as an overall blend, so no information comes up and the ingredient passes with a "0" score. This happens all the time. ("Coconut fatty acid cream base", anyone?)

How to avoid ethoxylated compounds
Compounds created with ethylene oxide (or ethoxylated compounds) are pretty easy to spot. Any time that you see an "eth" you can be sure it's ethoxylated. Sodium Laureth sulfate, sodium myreth sulfate, steareth, ceteareth, polyethylene. PEG is short for Polyethylene Glycol, so those are culprits as well.

Safer Alternatives
These lotion products are 95% or more organic, and contain no "vegetable emulsifying wax" or iffy ingredients.

Trillium Organics Organic Body Butter
Bubble & Bee Organic Body Butta
Nature's Paradise
Terressentials
Oracle Organics

What I Use...Your Questions Answered

I get asked the question all the time: Stephanie, what do you use for (fill in the blank)? Well, in this blog post, I'm going to bare it all!

What I Use: Hair Care

Shampoo & Conditioner: I switch between using the Unscented All Over Bar followed by a vinegar rinse or our Peppermint & Tea Tree shampoo. This week I've actually used the Lemongrass & Rosemary shower gel on my hair and I'm getting some great results with it as well. I use just plain ole distilled white vinegar in my vinegar rinse. To make sure I don't get the oilies, I make sure to keep my water softener filled with the right level of salt.

Styling Aids: Stevie "B" uses more hairspray than I do! I personally hate the stuff and don't use anything on my hair. On days when I actually pay attention to how I look, I'll heat style with a curling or flat iron. In this photo I'm completely product-free. I just used a curl dryer. I dried my hair with a regular dryer about half way, and then when it was still damp, used the curl dryer. I'll also let you in on a little secret--you can use our lotion stick to tame flyaways and dry ends. Just rub some on your fingers and then rub on hair!

What I Use: Makeup

Mascara: I'm currently using the dark brown mascara from Real Purity.

Eyeshadow: I'm using a brand that's made locally here in Utah called Lauren Brooke Cosmetiques. She has this great cream eyeshadow that's fun to put on and has great staying power. Plus it's as chemical-free as you can get with a mineral makeup.

Blush: I'm using Warm Mesa from Real Purity

Foundation: When I feel like I need a liquid foundation I use Physician's Formula Organic Wear. I just picked it up in a pinch at my local grocery store. I don't think I'll be buying it again because it feels really heavy on my face and seems to clog my pores. But then again, I don't like wearing much makeup anyways.

Loose Powder: Most of the time I'll skip the foundation and just use this. I'm currently using the powder from Physician's Formula Organic Wear, although when I run out I'm going to get Lauren Brooke's. I ordered a sample and liked it a lot.

Eyeliner: I'm using the dark brown eyeliner from Real Purity. It's a softer formula, so you have to be really gentle with it. But I like it pretty well.

Lipstick: I'm using Lauren Brook's Natural Lip Tints.

Nail Polish: Honeybee Garden's Water Colors. These chip very easily and you have to let it cure overnight. The trick is right before bed to apply one very light coat, let it dry, and then apply another light coat. Let it dry and then go to bed. Otherwise you'll pretty much chip it immediately. I ordered a darker mauve color and a light pink. I prefer the light pink because it doesn't seem to chip as easily and the chips don't show as bad.

What I Use: Toothpaste

This is my deep dark secret--the one product I haven't gone organic on! All the health food store brands still contain SLS (hello Tom's of Maine!) I currently use Biotene because at least it's SLS Free.

I did try A Wild Soap Bar's tooth soap--it was interesting and kinda fun. I would recommend it if you want something completely chemical-free.

What I Use: Facial Care

Face Cleanser: I just use our soap! In the summer I like the Oatmeal Spice or the Orange Peel. In the Winter when my skin's a little drier, I use the Unscented All-Over Bar because it has added rosehip seed, jojoba and sunflower oils.

Toner: Every once in a while if I feel like I need a toner, I'll use a little diluted Apple Cider Vinegar.

Moisturizer: I use a face cream of my own invention. I have a little batch of it made up if you want to try it. Click here to order a pre-release sample!

Anti-Acne Treatment: 2 Tablespoons of FlaxPro Flax Seeds every day!

What I Use: Sunscreen

A hat. ;-)

What I Use: Lip Balm

I go back and forth between all of our flavors. I seem to be gravitating towards the Karma Apple lately, which is weird because it was never my favorite, but now it is!

What I Use: Hand Lotion

I go back and forth between the Sunflower Lotion Stick and the Coconut Lime Lotion Stick:

What I Use: In the Shower

My favorite is the Organic Orange Peel Soap. I'll rotate between that and the Lime Shower Gel. for some reason I like having both the bar and the gel.

What I use: For handwashing

Right now I'm using the Red Raspberry Jam Heart Soap we made for Valentine's Day. We tested a few bars before we launched the product--they've lasted so long they're still at the sink more than a month later!

Have more questions? Need more recommendations? Comment below and I'll do my best!

Good News!

The Utah State Organic Program is up and running! We're getting our application in this week!