So what is a natural ingredient?

Currently, I’m looking out of my window at our little Calendula flowers, still a little wet from the shower earlier today. Reminding myself that, before the sun sets, I must go pick some flowers to dry out for my next batch of Calendula Goat milk soap.
Beside my flower bed are my various fruit trees.  I watch them in anticipation as the little marble sized lemons and limes slowly get bigger day by day,
not knowing that they will eventually make an amazing gentle soap for my customers.
Beyond our front yard, I look over to the paddocks. There are the mini goats, chomping away on the grass, knowing that in a few hours, its milking time.
That milk, will then be used for our moisturising creams and soaps.
In the distance, I see the array of native trees, (tea tree, Eucalyptus, Wattles) that will be pruned and used in some of our products.

The Standard refers to natural ingredients as
“Ingredients extracted directly from nature such as flora, fauna and mineral products as opposed to being produced synthetically.”

Key word there is, “extracted directly”. In the case of some ingredients, it’s easy to see that they fit easily into this definition.

In the case of raw materials that need to undergo some processing in order to extract the ingredient from the natural raw material that is the source:
Distilling aromatic plants to produce essential oils sometimes results in the creation of chemicals that didn’t exist in the raw material, but which are created by the actual distillation process alone!

The “Encyclopaedia of Common Natural Ingredients” says a natural product is defined as:
“A product that is derived from plant, animal or microbial sources, primarily through physical processing, sometimes facilitated by simple chemical reactions such as acidification, basification, ion exchange, hydrolysis, and salt formation as well as microbial fermentation. These chemical reactions do not drastically alter the chemical structure of the natural product to be isolated.”

Sometimes its easy to see natural products and sometimes its not as clear. 

In this day and age, with QR codes and websites and information galore its easy find which product is natural, synthetic or something in between. 
We all have seen the words “ Made from natural ingredients” 
But… if we look back on the whole world…. Isn’t everything made from natural products and just processed over and over and over again, added synthetics etc, until we have something we all know, but would not think of as Natural.
Lets take  a car for example. NOT NATURAL. But if you look at the steel in the car, which comes from Iron Ore a mineral, and processed again and again then processed more to get to what we know it as, say-
a car door or steering wheel
The wiring that turns on the lights of the car, that wire is made with Copper, which is, you guessed it, from the ground. A natural product. 
You get where I’m going with this. Everything started from earth. And processed again and again until what you get left with is nasty chemically processed and pollution generating, disposable product. Its sad but true.
We were given this earth with what it has on it, and look what happened.

Kind of getting off track here. But you can see my point.
Everything comes from the earth.
BUT. Its what we do with it that makes the difference.

What we do is make our products from its purest form possible.

Thankfully a new trend has begun.
People are aware now and are turning to natural products. Not just because its healthier and safer for them, but because, its environmentally friendly, ethically sourced and reduces pollution and waste.
The positives from natural products outweigh the synthetic products miles.
(more on this in an upcoming blog post)

Looking at product labels gives me a headache.
How many times have you looked at the ingredients in a label and say
“ Whats that?” I do!
Oh, there’s one ingredient I recognise- ‘Aqua’.  yay! (insert sarcasm here)

So why all the fancy names?
Well, cause there isn’t a name for something that used to be something that used to be called something else.

I want to see names of things I know and I hope you do too.
If it has Coconut oil in it, we write COCONUT OIL.  Not -Cocos Nucifera
Its that simple.
We are transparent with our labelling so you know exactly what is in our products.
There is one ingredient which we have to put the specific name on the label.
It is called OLIVEM 1000 
I was a little concerned when I was first recommended this product.
Why does it look like a chemical with numbers in its name? What is this stuff?
Answer: Natural Olive Emulsifying Wax (also known as Olivem 1000) is an all-natural derived, 100% plant based emulsifying wax. It is preservative free, non ionic, not ethoxylated, PEG-Free, and self emulsifying, derived from olive oil.
We will always strive to provide clean and clear ingredients for all our products.
If you ever have any questions, please ask, we are happy to help.

Our vision is to evolve and expand our range of natural products for all skin types but specially for those with skin conditions. Like myself, these people have struggled with skin irritation, redness, rashes, acne and many more.
We are here for you.  We want only the best for you all.
So, will do our best for all.