About Aubrey Organics
Aubrey Organics is a U.S-based cosmetics company that focuses on all-natural personal care and cosmetic products. Their main purpose is to offer natural and organic beauty products for people around the world, using hundreds or even thousands of years old techniques.
Origins
Founded in the 1960s, Aubrey Organics (first called Aubrey Nature Labs) takes great pride in their high standards and the lack of parabens, petrochemicals, or artificial fragrances and colorants. In 1994, Aubrey Organics became the first company in their field to be certified as a fully organic producer.
The Philosophy Behind Aubrey Organics
The company focuses on consumers’ education and transparency. Aubrey Organics was the first manufacturer from their field to list all the ingredients in their products.
Another key point that pleases its consumers is that Aubrey Organics is cruelty-free.
Aubrey Hampton, the Innovator
A passionate phytochemist and herbalist, Aubrey Hampton was the founder of Aubrey Nature Labs, writer, and activist. Although a very active and ingenious researcher and producer, his most impressive innovation was the development of the grapefruit seed essence as an antioxidant preservative.
He was also the first to create products that contain an impressive number of ingredients, nowadays commonly found in beauty products, such as milk proteins, jojoba oil, herbal gums, fruit acids, blue-green algae, and many others.
Aubrey Organics Products
Aubrey Organics is one of the few companies that claim to use only natural ingredients for their products and definitely the only one to use traditional manufacturing techniques, as far as we know.
Product Lines
Given their animal-friendly doctrine, their products are mostly vegan. The ingredients derived from animal products are few and involve no cruelty, among them being milk or egg extracts or oyster shells. However, they offer vegan alternatives to all of their non-vegan products.
Although the company started with only two products in the ‘60s, they now offer hundreds of products from baby care to bath products, natural deodorants, skin and hair care, or sun care formulas. To help those with Celiac disease maintain healthy skin, they even developed a gluten-free line, which features baby care products, deodorants, shampoos and conditioners, lotions, creams, shaving products, styling formulas, and SPF lotions.
What Makes Them Special
Aubrey Organics takes great pride in their ingredients, which are said to be natural. They replaced artificial additives, synthetic petrochemicals, or preservatives with their own proprietary natural preservative formula that is efficient.
Their products are handcrafted in small batches to ensure thorough quality control and to avoid wasting resources and ingredients. In addition, they use traditional techniques to extract and mix their formulas. This might, sometimes, result in products separating because of exposure to heat, but the process is reversible.
Shelf Life
The shelf life and expiration date vary from product to product, according to its ingredients and how perishable they are. Even though their preservative formula is efficient, it is understandable that natural products cannot compete with conventional personal care substances. However, a few products in their portfolio do not have an expiration date, because the ingredients they contain make them stable if kept sealed in cool, dark, and dry places.
As a general rule, their SPF products should be used within 2 years from production and 6 months from first opening the container. For the rest of the products, only 1 year should pass from opening the package. Using a product outside the recommended interval rarely exposes people to health risks, but means it will no longer be as effective.
How Organic Are They, Really?
The company states every ingredient is 100% natural and biodegradable, which makes it one of the most environmentally-friendly producers on the market. There are parts of their activity that unavoidably pollute the air and the water, but these definitely do not compare with the amounts a conventional personal care company would produce.
Their Ingredients
The USDA cannot verify and control personal care products as it does with edible products. There is no straightforward FDA definition for “organic” ingredients, and the USDA warns consumers that a natural ingredient doesn’t make a product safer. You can find out more about this issue in this article.
However, the company bases most of its reputation and success on organic ingredients and takes great pride in their selection.
Environmental policies
The company uses recyclable plastic bottles for packaging and rarely produces toxic waste. Let’s take a deeper look into their environmental policies and their practical implementation.
Aubrey Organics is one of the most eco-friendly companies: Few to no water pollution factors, practical environmental policies, and supply chain policies as efficient and forgiving to the environment. The company is also efficient at waste management, recycling whatever complies with regulations and properly disposing of the rest.
However, generating a certain amount of greenhouse gasses is unavoidable. Even using manufacturing techniques thousands of years old, this will always be a consequence, no matter the industry or how natural the ingredients are, especially since transportation of their products is needed.
Aubrey Organics also tries to reduce the amount of resources they use. Given their pledge to use only traditional techniques, the manufacturing process makes use of large quantities of water and energy to make sure the final products contain no impurities.
Ethics
As already highlighted, the company is one of the most transparent towards its customers when it comes to their practices and ingredients. Their products are among the safest on the international market, and their ethics policies towards customers are flawless.
Aubrey Organics scored a medium on the “Diversity and Equal Opportunities”, “Human Rights”, and “Occupational Health and Safety” policies and implementations, but these aspects are improving.
Because a product must be provided to customers 12 months a year, there are cases when the company imports fresh ingredients from all over the world. Even though the Acquisitions department does its best to select genuine and reliable providers as their partners, there have been cases of child labor and abuse among them.
Awards & Certifications
Even though federal authorities cannot yet fully regulate the cosmetic and personal hygiene market, there are other organizations that test and certify producers in this field. Aubrey Organics acquired an impressive number of national or international certifications that prove their safety and ethical practices:
- The first to be Certified Organic;
- Safe Cosmetics Pledge for never endangering or exposing customers to allergens, carcinogens, or other harmful substances;
- Leaping Bunny Certified for cruelty-free or animal-friendly techniques;
- PETA Animal Treatment Assessment;
- Green America Seal of Approval – Gold Level for their environmental policies and practices;
- Compact for Safe Cosmetics: Champion.
Aubrey Organics is a personal care company that deserves its popularity. Their products truly are unique, and it is one of the greenest manufacturers worldwide, striving for a cleaner planet with a healthier population. Their products, efficient and diverse, have accessible prices, which make us realize that maybe organic farming really is a good choice for the beauty industry.
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