Minnesota Public Radio, Annie Baxter
Published January 3, 2008
Minneapolis-based Aveda is heading into its 30th year. And the company does
so as the leader of the North American market for natural and organic beauty
products. Aveda says the company has only grown more committed to its
"natural" roots in the 10 years since cosmetics giant Estee Lauder bought
it. But some critics think Aveda is falling short of its reputation.
St. Paul, Minn. — If you have ever used Aveda products, you know the
telltale signs -- the aromas can seem at once minty and sweet; product names
touting rosemary, flaxseed and aloe make it sound as though the ingredients
were plucked right from the garden.
Those garden aromas practically pour off Rachel Huss, who just got her hair
done at the Aveda Institute in Minneapolis. She is a big fan of the
products, and Aveda's founder, Horst Rechelbacher. His plant-based approach
"I definitely love what the founder -- what he believes in terms of organic
usage, and their mission statement to help the environment and other
cultures around the world," Huss says.
Ten years after Rechelbacher sold Aveda to Estee Lauder, the company
continues to trumpet an eco-friendly message. Last year, it became the first
beauty company to manufacture using 100 percent wind energy. Spokeswoman
Suzanne Dawson says Aveda is seeking organic certification for more of its
ingredients.
"Now, 90 percent of all the essential oils we use in our company are
certified organic, and 89 percent of raw herbal ingredients as well are
certified organic," Dawson says.
But that does not mean all Aveda ingredients are natural. And that is
distressing to Kay Wasyliszyn of St. Paul.
"We won a basket of Aveda products at a charity event, and we were really
excited until we looked online and saw what was in the products, and we
didn't end up using them."
Wasyliszyn is pregnant. With a child on the way, she and her husband are
especially vigilant about the products they use. When they found a Web site
that showed some of the potentially toxic ingredients in Aveda's and other
companies' products, they were concerned.
The Web site is called Skin Deep. It's run by the watchdog groups the
Environmental Working Group and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.
The Web site uses information from government and other research, and then
rates the toxicity of personal care products on a scale of 1-10. A number of
Aveda products have a low ranking of 2, but others go up to 7 on the scale.
Stacy Malkan with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics says those higher toxicity
rankings on Aveda products derive from ingredients the Skin Deep Web site
says can irritate the skin, harm the reproductive system, or disrupt
hormones.
Malkan thinks the company should do better.
"A company like Aveda, with the backing of billion-dollar Estee Lauder,
really ought to be at the front of the line innovating the safest products
on the market," says Malkan. "Instead, I think what we've seen is a trend
that the major multinational beauty companies face a lot of pressure to keep
costs low, and use a lot of cheap synthetic petrochemical ingredients."
But the Skin Deep Web site leaves some gaps -- it does not indicate what
dose levels are harmful. And Aveda says the database sometimes draws on
formulas no longer in use.
As it turns out, the company has been phasing out an ingredient associated
with hormone disruption, parabens, even though the Food and Drug
Administration says parabens are safe. Aveda's Suzanne Dawson says about
half the company's products no longer contain them.
"So we have about 350 products that are out there now that are preserved
without parabens, and we have a very active plan in place to replace the
remainder," Dawson says.
Aveda also faces criticism from the other end of the spectrum, from people
who care less about product purity than performance.
Denny Kemp salon in Minneapolis used to sell only Aveda products, but now it
offers two other product lines that do not claim to be all-natural. Stylist
Manuel Villarreal trained at Aveda and has been using the company's products
for more than a decade. He loves Aveda, but sometimes, he wants to use
products that will style or hold better.
"Suddenly you realize [that if] you put in a little bit of chemicals, it
works better. You have to go, I guess, to the dark side in order for it to
work," Villarreal says.
Nevertheless, there is money to be made for Aveda pushing its natural
agenda. By some estimates, the natural and organic personal product market
is likely to grow by half over the next two years.
