New York, NY—The NSF/ANSI 305 standard for personal care products has a new adherent in Avalon Organics, a brand of Hain Celestial Group, whose entire line of skin, hair and bath care offerings now contains at least 70% organic ingredients. “The most important decision we’ve made as a brand was to become NSF/ANSI 305 certified,” a company spokesperson said at a press event held here on November 3. The result of a two year process, the brand’s certification was completed by the third-party agency Quality Assurance International.

At the event, organic certification coordinator for Whole Foods Market Joe Dickson cited Avalon as a leading example for other personal care brands in their efforts to become organic certified. A driving force behind tweaking formulations to meet this standard, for this and other brands, has been Whole Foods Market’s adoption of the NSF/ANSI 305 as one of two standards required for all personal care products in its stores. The other allowable standard is the National Organic Program’s food standard. The list of permitted ingredients for this standard is too restrictive for personal care manufacturers, particularly concerning elements like emulsifiers, where other options are required to make products appealing and effective.

This need for a separate organic personal care standard was at the root of the development of NSF/ANSI 305, a standard of which Avalon hopes more consumers become aware. The small blue NSF logo with a leaf on it, familiar as a marker of cleanliness on many objects in restaurant kitchens, will now gradually be applied to personal care products as more brands move to reformulate. Avalon Organics’ re-launched line will begin to appear on store shelves in January 2012.

online 11/3/11