Australian Organic Skincare
Posted - November 1, 2008
Jasmin Skincare: Facing the challenge of organic beauty
By Adriana Michael - as printed in O.W.N. Fall 2008
Imagine a laboratory at the top of a mountain, surrounded by virgin forests, and supplied directly with medicinal herbs, extracts, and essential oils from its own organic biodynamic farm. Such a mountain is called Mt. Tamborine in the beautiful Gold Coast hinterland of Australia, where Jasmin Skincare has developed its 100% organic certified line of skincare and cosmetics.
Founded in 2002 by Lihua Song and Gordon Chalmers, the driving force behind Jasmin Skincare has been the desire to offer people a natural and alternative range in an industry dominated by multi-nationals peddling synthetics. The company’s entire operation is vertically integrated, ensuring complete control of production, from farming of the active ingredients all the way to the end product delivered to the consumer.
Conventional wisdom in the beauty industry claims that the inclusion of a few ingredients are as far as organic cosmetics can go. They point to the sometimes poor performance of natural shampoos and deodorants as an indicator that truly natural beauty products will never sell as well as their synthetic counterparts. Fortunately, dynamic firms like Jasmin Skincare are proving those naysayers wrong.
It took this company three long years of research and development, and an investment of around eight million US dollars but, in the end, Jasmin Skincare launched its own organic line. A claim not easy to make, as water is the main ingredient in most cosmetics and water can not be certified as organic.
With Jasmine Skincare, Song and Chalmers replaced the traditional water phase with ingredients such as shea butter, aloe vera gel and beneficial plant extract.” If we use water in any product it is in the form of certified organic rosewater and limited below 10% of the total formulation”, says Chalmers. The only exception to this are the five floral hydrosol mist sprays (rose, jasmin, neroli, chamomile and lavender). The lipsticks are only produced under the category of “cosmetics”, which as such contain no water.
With the boom of the green movement, it’s all too common to see cosmetics touted as all-natural when they’re anything but natural. Some brands may even have some organic certified ingredients. However, a careful look at the labels may reveal that the formula hides the usual cocktail of toxic chemicals.
Preservatives, in particular, are often not natural, may be petroleum derived, such as parabens, known to be harmful.
Finding organic solutions that would offer the same performance as traditional cosmetics has not been easy, but Song and Chalmers are dedicated enough to their ideals to practice what they preach. The company has paid great attention to emulsification issues, preservation and efficacy of the final product. One of their best finds has been a natural citrus based preservative by UK firm Citrox Ltd. “Using proprietary ingredients such as (those from) Citrox with a range of essential oils and extracts that have known anti-microbial functions allows us to increase shelf life to near comparable levels with our ‘chemical swill’ brethren.”, says Chalmers. Testing these mixes with various blends of our own, we are getting results that far outperform even the traditional parabens”.
Many cosmetics and skincare preparations have a pH problem, not with the formulation Jasmin got from Citrox. “A secondary benefit from using the Citrox natural formula is that it pulls the pH level down to levels that match normal skin, thus making the products easier to work with”, adds Chalmers. The results have been far better than Song and Chalmers expected. “We are launching our new Migaloo mid-priced certified organic range, with Citrox as the base preservative.”
Jasmin has proved it is possible to develop 100% natural cosmetics with organic certified ingredients that perform well. The line of over 100 products is selling at selected spas and salons in Australia , China, Hong Kong and other Asian countries. Jasmin follows the Soil Association standards and has Australian OFC certification. According to Chalmers Jasmin is among the first, certified organic companies to ever pass the strict Chinese Ministry of Hygiene and CIQ import certification.
Over the past three years Song and Chalmers have developed a “show and tell” farm and manufacturing facility. Last year they hosted over 7,000 visitors. “We have given everyone a ‘first hand’ experience of both fresh organic produce and understanding how it is possible to manufacture skincare and cosmetics in an environmentally friendly way”, says Chalmers.
But the project does not end there. This year the firm undertook USDA certification and, once finalised, it plans to certify for the new EU organic standards.
The next stage is to move totally to wind and solar power generation, pay attention to a new concept of Jasmin’s themed stores and to focus on Europe, North America and the Middle East. A busy agenda ahead for an energetic duo and a lab sitting on top of a dream mountain.
