Tomato, tomahto

See if you can spot the difference between these two products from Organix:

one of these things is not like the other...
photo credit: Center for Environmental Health

Besides the obvious: color, shampoo/conditioner, etc. Down at the very bottom. The product label. The shampoo on the left says 'organic' while the conditioner on the right says 'ogx.'

This slight but significant change has come about after months of the company Organix coming under fire for its product labeling, specifically the misuse of the term 'organic'. Huh. You mean that a product sold under the brand name 'Organix' isn't full of organic ingredients? How can that be?

It's a little like how champagne is champagne only if it's from the Champagne region of France. 

Turns out, under California law, a company can claim its product is organic only if 70 percent of the ingredients are organic. The Center for Environmental Health sued the company for its misleading product labeling. Because guess what -- its products have hardly any organic ingredients.

A court found in favor of CEH, and ordered Organix to pay a settlement of $6.5 million. Furthermore, the company has been made to change its packaging for items sold in California, as of June 2013. But not in other states. So the false claims that are illegal in one state are A-OK in the other 49. 

I like that Organix/Ogx/whatever is being held accountable. I like that folks are drawing the connection (or, in most cases, the disconnection) between labeling and formulations. But I don't like how states' laws on retail marketing benefit companies more than they benefit consumers. It's time to turn up the heat, folks.

Check out how EWG rates Organix products here, and GoodGuide's ratings here. You can see original coverage of the lawsuit at WSJ.com, Upstart Business Journal, and CosmeticsDesign.com. And then think about what you can tell your elected officials about making the retail marketplace more consumer-friendly.

Yours in cleaner living,
Jazzy