Before presenting the Emeral Awards for Best Natural Shampoo, Conditioner, and Hair Treatment tomorrow, I would like to deliver a brief public service announcement.

As you may have noticed, few of the products mentioned in the Emerald Awards series have also won best of green awards in the major newsstand magazines. Those products are primarily sold at Sephora and carry this retailer’s own “natural seal.” Go to the website, and they will acknowledge that no universal standard exists, leading them to create their own seal because “we felt we had to take the initiative to define what natural means in terms of our environment. What is natural beauty? We have defined the term as it relates to Sephora, and products must live up to that definition to be considered natural.”

This definition of natural is, at best, a broad one. In fact, it earned Sephora the honor of being named one of the four “biggest ‘green marketing’ scams” by TerraChoice, the group behind sinsofgreenwashing.org. Beyond that, however, I found much greater concerns than their lax standards.

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I have a confession to make: For the last 6 months, I was wearing mascara that I didn’t actually sell on my website or in my store. Although I had used all of them, and really liked several, I came across a natural mascara from France a while back that simply blew the others out of the water. I couldn’t go back; thus, when people would ask me which mascara I recommended, I had to a) give them my #2 and #3 choices whilst pretending I knew of nothing better (because the odds of there being a spa carrying the brand in your area were exceedingly slim, so why torture you); b) mumble something about wearing a natural mascara that I would be selling some day, or c) quickly change the subject.

No longer must I select from 3 unhappy options when asked about the best natural mascara. I bring you Couleur Caramel’s natural, eco-cert certified, how-long-oh-lord-how-long-have-I-waited-for-this mascara.

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When it comes to natural and organic beauty and personal care products, you usually get what you pay for. Yes, you heard that about commercial products, too, only to find out the face cleanser that took an entire weekend of tip money worked no better than the Clean & Clear you had been using since you were 14. Unfortunately, with natural products, price often reflects quality. The reason is pretty straightforward: it’s much cheaper to create synthetic ingredients in a lab than it is to source them from nature, let alone from a certified organic farm. Organic ingredients are expensive to sow, expensive to reap, and therefore expensive to buy. You can bet your precious, rapidly-depreciating 401k that more companies would be all over this natural/organic thing if it were cheaper to do.

That’s what makes it newsworthy when I stumble upon a rare exception to the Organic = Spendy rule of thumb, in the form of Max Green Alchemy. They’ve kept their line of skin and hair care simple, focusing on the basics like one shampoo, one conditioner, one hand cream, and so forth. The MGA conditioner was the first natural conditioner I found that actually made my hair soft and manageable. Everything else I had tried thus far, particularly in that price range, left my hair dry and dull (I know I totally sound like an infomercial; my apologies). My husband, whose skin reacts to everything, is equally in love with the line. Oh, and did I mention the packaging and aromas are gender neutral? How about that - you and your partner, regardless of gender, can share in the joys of Max Green Alchemy together!!

The creators of MGA also keep careful watch over their ingredients to make sure nothing is synthetic, no quality is compromised, and no animals are ever tested anywhere along the manufacturing process. I was fortunate enough to get a bit of time on the phone with one of the co-founders, Wil Baker, to learn how they went about creating what I think is easily one of best lines of natural, affordable skin and hair care. Here is an exerpt:

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Well, not exactly, but really close. My mother, like many others walks out of retail stores that smell like heavy cleansers and would sooner live in filth than in a house with Pine Sol. I’m not as sensitive as my mother, but I’ve tried to keep my house friendly t her and others like her.

Today I cleaned the house from top to bottom with EcoDiscoveries products and guess what my mother smelled? Nothing.

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