Why Aren't We Certified?

We get asked from time to time if our products are "certified".

"Green washing" is all over our industry.  Many companies market themselves as "natural" and "clean" to exploit the growing trend towards organic-based products, when in reality many of their products contain synthetic and harmful ingredients.  While Health Canada regulates how and what a company can claim about the benefits of their products as well as the ingredients they list on their labels, many terms such as "natural" and "organic" are open-ended and have no clear legal definition.  Certifications are designed to provide confidence to consumers to avoid the pitfalls of buying a product that has been misrepresented.

Education has always been the driver behind our company.  Our goal has remained the same - to pass on the knowledge we have gained over the years to help people understand what they should be putting on their bodies to better their lives, even if that means they buy nothing from us. 

When we first started out in the industry we ran local beauty workshops that covered topics such as colour, makeup and skincare tips.  As we got deeper into the products we were using at these workshops, we discovered how dangerous they actually were.  Since at the time there were relatively no brands in the market that met our standards, we started educating ourselves on what it would take to start making our own products.  Education and people, not certifications, are what brought us to where we are today.

By aligning ourselves with industry certifications we believe:

A)  We remove our flexibility to source the highest quality ingredients within a global market from suppliers who may not meet the requirements of the certification bodies.  We may need to compromise our quality in order to put many of these seals on our product labels.

B)  Certifications reduce the interaction between our brand and our customers.  Why bother learning what you are actually buying when a certification is enough?

C)  Certifications are costly.  For a small company like ours that means considerable investment - but what would be the return?  We prefer investing in our customers and retailer partners, in the quality of our ingredients and in creating new innovations while passing the cost savings onto the end-user.

We encourage our customers to educate themselves on the ingredients they should avoid and what to look for.   While industry certifications are certainly popular and there are new and innovative certifications being developed that may be valuable for the industry and for consumers, If you want to be truly confident with your skincare products, go beyond certifications by reading and understanding what's in them and most importantly by judging the actual results you get by using them!

-Jacqui & Sue