Italian consumers are discovering the value of natural and organic beauty products: pharmacies and herbalist shops have actually recorded growing results (respectively +3% and +2%), while the cosmetics market as a whole has experienced a setback in the first half of 2009.
 
As a matter of fact, in Italy too more and more consumers are no longer seduced by the flatteries of major cosmetics companies’ advertising campaigns. The reasons are explained to us by Mr. Alessandro Spadoni of ICEA (the Italian ethical and environmental certification institute), in charge for the Bio Eco Cosmesi standard. "The skin is the biggest and heaviest organ of the human body, connecting it with the outside. It is an excretory organ (like kidneys), whose physiological role should be preserved."
 
Today the number of consumers that read the label of beauty products (and are able to identify the ingredients) is on the rise, he reveals, this is reshaping the cosmetics market toward a greater attention on human and environment health. "Italian law 713/86 regulating cosmetics products is quite 'generous' - he explains - as it allows the use of silicones and acrylates that give that pleasant 'pearl' effect to so many shampoos and detergents, but that block the skin’s physiological function."
 
Health and environmental respect - the essential values of organic products - are more and more important also to consumers of beauty products. That’s why even large retail chains "are expanding the organic range to the no-food segment", explains Alessandro Pulga, technical director of ICEA (pictured, below). "This is a positive achievement which could favour a mass consumption of sustainable products.
 
In 2002 ICEA launched the Bio Eco Cosmesi standard (in the same period when the Soil Association presented its own). Today the turnover generated by Bio Eco Cosmesi certified co mpanies (113 in Italy and 30 abroad, being also present in Japan and the U.S., for a total of 2,774 products) is worth about 7 million euros. In line with the forecasts of Uniparo (the Italian association of cosmetics businesses) their market share has a growing trend.
 
"To set up this standard we have chosen to follow a policy of public discussion - Mr. Pulga explains -. Starting from the draft prepared in 2000, we launched an open consultation involving all the stakeholders, as well as universities and associations that provided scientific support. Thus producers were allowed to take part in the creation of a shared tool they could recognize."
 
Over the years the establishment of the organic cosmetics standard had to deal with the problem of finding certified ingredients, which were shortly available on the market at the beginning, while the national organic sector was developing and needed to take different paths. "In cosmetics instead - explains Pulga - despite a different approach, views in the technical issues have substantially stayed the same".
 
In 2003 large companies such as Bottega Verde and Erbolario joined BioEcoCosmesi: a sign that the industry had started developing more decidedly. "The cosmetics market - Spadoni says - is shattered: on the one hand there is the reference target of consumers who want certification and there is the challenge of competition. Once they overcame the initial fear of seeing a devaluation of their not certified production, the big brands of natural cosmetics chose not to convert existing lines, but to create new ones."
 
As for ingredients, in order to meet the consumer's desire to have greater awareness about cosmetics' ingredients and chemical formulas, at the end of 2007 ICEA launched Icea Check Cosmetics, a small free software (which can be downloaded from the website) that help consumers assess the products' compliance "with the rules that we were able to point out". In short, after entering the ingredients of cosmetic products (but there is also the model for food) people can see in real time whether they are made in the best way for health and the environment.
 
From ICEA to Cosmos. "When this idea - which was born from the cooperation between producers and technical and scientific operators - became a fact, then we realized that in 2002 the world was already globalized," joked Spadoni. "The experience we gained in the textile industry, as a system and standards, suggested us to think and work at least in a European perspective," continued Pulga. "At that time a voluntary certification with an identifying label was being created. In some countries, like France (with Ecocert) and the UK (Soil Association), that label was already quite strong: in France, indeed, there was a national law which had taken the activities and specification of Ecocert as a model for a national regulation, that is now proposed by Qualité France as well."
 
"In a system that is acknowledged only within national borders - continues ICEA technical director - a producer who seeks other markets must face much stronger situations and brands, not to mention the difficulties for producers of semi-finished goods, who must adapt to different standards."
 
Moreover, the concept of a consortium of mutually acknowledged brands is the best tool to facilitate large retailers and the market share that it guarantees. "A more widespread and strong system", hence the idea of a Cosmos brand that allows the manufacturer to cross the Italian border and seek new market opportunities. "With our European partners we have tried to find the common points between the different regulations in order to start a confrontation that could help develop a common standard." As of today, ICEA cosmetics and beauty products, along with those of its partners in France (Cosmebio and Ecocert), UK (Soil Association), Germany (BDIH) and Belgium (Ecogarantie) may also bear the Cosmos brand (Cosmetics Organic Standard), which recognizes the mutual value without betraying the requirements of the Italian ethical and environmental certification institute, as explained Spadoni: the requirement to guarantee that products are healthy as they employ "that part of chemistry that is allowed by the law on healthy cosmetics and is hence compatible with the skin ", as well as compulsory organic ingredients and the principle of environmental sustainability.