One thing that I have Observed in my 50 plus years that seems to be an aspect of human nature, no matter where people are from, is that we love to love something. Be it a spouse, a child, a place, or an ideal we absolutely adore being infatuated with the concept of loving and you will find no others more than Americans falling head over heels for a trend or a fad that will put them in favor with the status quo, no matter what the cost. Seriously, who would have thought a decade or so ago that people would willing pay $7.50 or more for a cup of coffee? No matter what cute or catchy name you call it or what kind of cup you put it in, at the end of any day, it is simple decadence, nothing more. At they same time it also defines the American mentality.
One affair that has romanced the American population, starting back in the seventies, is the "natural" craze that has influenced our purchasing, use and consumption of certain products. The admiration some have for these products is steadily growing not only in the way they make some of us feel about ourselves for using them, but their price as well. The pride of self-satisfaction these products give us for going "natural" or dare I say "green" (I hate that word) seems to have no cost threshold for some. Whether its "all natural", "no preservatives", "eco-friendly", "whole grain", "no artificial colors or flavors", "no phosphates" or "fragrance free" the problem, that most seem to be oblivious to, is larger than the percentage of post consumer content in the packaging of our vain attempts to save the earth.
What we seem to miss when we read labels that make us have those happy, happy, joy, joy feelings that we are doing something good for ourselves and the environment, while paying twice the price for our efforts, is that along with the "No VOC's" boasts, there is also "No Regulation". That's right, my fellow Observer. There are absolutely no federal regulations in place, other than the EPA monitoring the safety of chemicals used by the industries, that requires manufacturers to disclose any of their products ingredients to the public. So.... since nothing is really man-made and everything comes from the earth, the term "natural" has a broad scope as far as regulation is concerned.
Now, I'm not talking about food. If you want to start a Euell Gibbons revival in order to reinvestigate the sustainable protein content of your backyard pine tree, that's fine with me. By all means, grab the nearest bow saw and bon' appetite. I did hear a nice red goes well with most conifers. No, my going green gripe is with all these companies that keep popping up overnight that are using the same chemicals in their "green" cleaning products as their competitors, slapping an "all natural" slogan on the package because they added orange peel extract, charging more because its so much harder to make and finally, the American consumer public buying their botanical bull. This type of marketing strategy is nothing new, though. Ad campaigns that make claims that their product is "better than" or "better for you" can be traced back further that Captain Kirk, sitting on a tractor, in a sunflower field "promising" the vegetable fat spread he's hawking was "better than" the vegetable fat spread being sold at your local market that had a crown or a bonnet on the package even though the main ingredient, vegetable fat, was exactly the same. So if you liked sunflowers "better than" crowns and liked Star Trek "better than" Battlestar Galactica you just might buy theirs instead. It's harmless competition to a certain extent and, most of the time, makes no difference.
Unfortunately there exists a marketing ploy that is a little more harmful to who it is targeted towards than just the fat content of what your spreading on your morning muffin. Children. Babies. Or should I elaborate, the parents of the aforementioned that will use the products on them. This past week Hain Celestial Group Inc., which makes Earth's Best baby shampoo along with other products for infants and toddlers, after a year long controversy, has announced that they will be removing claims on their shampoo and skin cleansing product packaging that they don't contain SLS (sodium laurel sulfate) an agent that can cause skin irritations. As well as Hain Celestial, testing by Chemir, an independent analytical laboratory, also found products made by the Honest Company, a company co-founded and promoted by actress Jessica Alba and geared directly towards families with small children, contained more than trace amounts of SLS, an agent they swore they would never use. Both companies disputed the results and stated that they used sodium coco sulfate, which is a milder cleaning agent than SLS. As it turns out, though, coconut oil, from which SCS is derived, contains laurel alcohol naturally, which in turn comprises the principle cleaning agent in SLS. Also SCS is, by definition, a blend of several cleaning agents that can contain as much as 50% of SLS.
As Hain Celestial conceded and is changing it's packaging to "increase transparency", Honest claims that it's own testing found absolutely no SLS in their detergent or cleaners and stated that Chemir's results were "wrong and reckless". I don't know why that doesn't surprise me. So much for the "honest" part of their "Honestly Free Guarantee". Not to pick on Alba, but Susie Storm may very well wish she could turn invisible, considering the class action lawsuit her company is facing from consumers who were severely sunburned using Honest brand sunscreen. On the other end (pun intended) Honest's plant based, gluten free disposable diapers, yes, you read that right, gluten free diapers, claim to have an "absorbent core with fluff pulp harvested from certified sustainably managed forests". Can't you just feel the warm eco-conscience love wrapping around your baby's bum? Pardon me, but what a literal load of compost cuddling crap, Honestly! By looking at the fine print, you'll find that these "naturally" made, cozy baby butt crack covers also contain sodium polyacrylatepolyolefin (say that three times fast), polymer spandex (I thought spandex went out in the 90's...oh well), polyolefin and polyurethane. Sounds like a chemical alphabet soup to me, but remember nature nuts.... they are gluten free, so what do I know?
For those of you that may be wondering why I'm taking a stand for consumer advocacy and asking why it matters to me that people are falling for this, I have to admit, you caught me my loyal reader. Some of you know me all too well. I actually could care less about Mr. & Mrs. "No CFC's" "Look at us spending exuberant amounts of money on environmentally friendly products", "We spend because we care about how you perceive us" all the while driving to their country club, that doesn't recycle anything, in their 2016 "Earth Destroyer" that gets a whopping 2.5 miles to the gallon. As far as I'm concerned they're getting exactly what they deserve when these companies take them to the proverbial "green" cleaners. What I do care about is these snake oil salesmen in all natural clothing selling their products to people who seek them out for reasons not as self-serving as the status symbols that they've become, such as allergies and intolerances. That's who I care about. That's who matters. Especially when these products are being specifically purchased for children. When these people get duped by false claims, it's more than their egos that's harmed.
Although unregulated and have been proven to not be significantly superior to the mainstream products available, four out of five people polled are still buying "green" products and services despite the higher cost. We have to ask ourselves why we are adding to the con ridden coffers of a multi billion dollar industry in order to use products that utilize most of the same ingredients and agents in their manufacturing as the competitors they bash in their advertising. Worse yet, produce merchandise that does not do what it claims to, masked in an eco-friendly package.
Speaking of packaging, a new Harris poll shows that although we may buy products to make ourselves feel less guilty about our individual carbon footprint, a lot of us don't follow through with the complete "green" cycle. For a society that loves throwing money away on all natural initiatives, we don't seem to want to practice what our money is trying to buy as over 25% of Americans still don't recycle. According to Harris, 3 out of 10 ages 18 to 30 don't separate their garbage, while only 67% of Southerners and 70% of Midwesterners bother to put out their recyclables on Sunday night. When asked why they didn't, 12% claimed it took too much effort, 16% said it was useless to do so, 6% said they were too busy and 5% found it too difficult. Put those numbers up against the more than 80% who claim they buy "green" products, you have to wonder how sincere most people's environmental concerns are.
We constantly pride ourselves on our "save the planet" endeavors. Buying "green" products with biodegradable packaging, reusable shopping bags, hybrid cars, recycled paper goods and low impact cleaners, most of us make every attempt to do our part in some way or at least make it look like we are. And for those who are actually sincere about the practice, their "green goings" are usually met with frustration caused by companies cashing in on their enthusiasm for the environment and selling them an overpriced, eco-placebo pig in a poke. The sad fact is that a lot of "green" policies are often smoke and mirror shams that are designed to make money rather than help the ecosystem. The best that any of us that are genuinely concerned about the products we use and the amount of waste we produce is to educate ourselves. We must research programs in order to find out if they are effective and practice the ones that are to obtain what we are trying to achieve. When we arm ourselves with knowledge we become the consumers corporations avoid at first, but eventually cater to. Unfortunately, the one piece of information that we continually fail to comprehend is that even with all the misleading and deceitful tactics used by companies to get our environmentally conscience dollar, regardless of our instantaneous access to factual science that could guide our decision making in the correct direction, the largest threat to our planet's ability to support our existence.... is us. Strictly an Observation. If you'll excuse me, I have to sort the recyclables.
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