Is This "All Natural?" GOOD QUESTION!

One of the hottest topics among soap makers is the term "natural."  How often do we see that word on a product?  All natural this, and all natural that.  Our minds naturally go to a good place when we see the word natural.  We automatically assume that something that is natural is better than something that is not.  What does the word actually mean? 
 
I have a dozen eggs in my refrigerator right now that proudly proclaim themselves "All Natural" on the carton.  Great.  But what is an UNnatural egg?  If natural means something in it's original state as found in nature, then arsenic, lead, and petroleum are natural.  Products containing essential oils are labeled often as all natural.  We consider essential oils to be natural, but they are made by people distilling lots of plant material and then disbursing the distillation in oil.  Are they really natural?  Fragrance oils are considered synthetic, but if a fragrance oil is made from diluted essential oils fixed with petroleum derivatives, are they as natural as essential oils?  The oxides so many of us use for coloring our products are by and large made in a laboratory, as natural oxides mined from the earth are contaminated with lead, mercury, and other nasty natural things. The lab-produced oxides are virtually chemically identical to the natural oxides; does that make them a natural colorant?  Shea butter; we all love shea butter and consider it a natural moisturizer.  It's pure lovely fat from a plant source.  But people have to extract that fat, and to actually BE pure, it has to be cleaned and filtered.  Is it natural?  And so the discussion remains circular, and the word natural has become more or less a marketing ploy.


In the United States, the regulatory bodies have pretty much ignored the word natural, not trying to define it or make rules for its use.  That doesn't surprise me at all.  I'd hate to be the one who had to decide what natural means.  Oh...wait a minute....I DO have to decide!  At least for Woodhaven Soaps, I have to decide. 


I fussed and fussed with whether to use the word at all in conjunction with any Woodhaven Soaps products.  In the end,  I (arbitrarily) decided that since the majority of people divide fragrances into two categories -- essential oils (natural) and fragrance oils (synthetic), we will use the term here at Woodhaven to describe any of our products that contain essential oils as their fragrance (or no fragrance at all) and contain NO coloring agents.  Under those guidelines, I don't have to decide which coloring agents fall into the natural/synthetic categories.  In the end, it's up to you.  The one thing I DO know for sure is that we work hard to produce great soaps and great bath and body products.  Loving our work here at Woodhaven Soaps comes naturally to us!