Why “100% Organic” Skincare Is a Myth
Why “100% Organic” Skincare Is a Myth
“100% organic” sounds decisive. Clean. Reassuring.
It’s also, in most cases, not how real skincare formulation works.
That doesn’t mean organic ingredients don’t matter — they absolutely do. But the idea that a finished moisturizer can be entirely organic is more marketing shorthand than scientific reality. Here’s why.
Organic Ingredients vs. Organic Formulas
Organic certification applies to how an ingredient is grown, not how an entire skincare formula is built.
Botanical oils, butters, and extracts can be certified organic when they’re cultivated and processed under strict agricultural standards. But a moisturizer isn’t just a collection of oils in a jar. It’s literally mixing oil and water. Nature doesn’t do this on its own — formulation does. (We break this down in our Skincare Science Lessons.)
The formula typically includes:
Water or water-based components
Emulsifiers that allow oil and water to coexist
Stabilizers that prevent separation
Preservation systems that keep products safe to use
Many of these components cannot be certified organic, even when they’re responsibly sourced, naturally derived, or approved for use in organic formulations.
If you want to understand how we evaluate ingredients beyond marketing labels, start with The Hierarchy of Purity™.
The Water Problem No One Mentions
Most moisturizers contain water.
Water is not an agricultural product — it can’t be farmed, harvested, or certified organic.
Some brands attempt to work around this by using aloe juice or hydrosols instead of water, but the issue remains: once you introduce non-agricultural functional components, the formula itself no longer qualifies as “100% organic” in any meaningful way. Calling it that anyway creates confusion, not clarity.
That’s also why products like Disarm™, our anhydrous cleansing balm, are intentionally water-free — and why we reserve Gladiateur Organics™ for formulas where 100% organic is genuinely achievable.
Why Emulsifiers and Preservatives Matter
A safe, effective moisturizer requires ingredients whose sole job is function, not marketing appeal.
Emulsifiers keep the formula stable.
Preservatives prevent microbial growth.
Even when these ingredients are:
Naturally-derived
Approved by organic certification bodies
Used at minimal, safety-validated levels
They still don’t meet the definition of “organic” in the way consumers are often led to believe. Ignoring that reality doesn’t make a product purer — it just makes the conversation less honest.
Where Marketing Gets Ahead of Science
“100% organic” has become a shorthand for good, safe, or better. But skincare doesn’t work in absolutes. If a claim sounds effortless, it’s usually because the hard parts were edited out.
Formulation is about trade-offs:
Stability vs. simplicity
Sensory experience vs. ingredient constraints
Shelf life vs. minimal intervention
Pretending those trade-offs don’t exist doesn’t serve the consumer — it obscures how products are actually made.
How Gladiateur Beauty Approaches This Differently
At Gladiateur Beauty™, we evaluate ingredients individually, not as buzzwords. Every ingredient is chosen for what it contributes — not for how well it performs on a label.
Some components in our formulas may be:
Certified organic
Naturally derived
Biotech-created for purity and consistency
Functional necessities for safety and performance
Each earns its place through standards, not labels. That’s why we built The Hierarchy of Purity™ — to clearly show how ingredients are assessed, categorized, and chosen, without pretending a single label tells the whole story.
The Bottom Line
Organic ingredients matter.
So do water and honesty.
Skincare isn’t made better by pretending it’s simpler than it is. It’s made better by understanding how it works — and holding every component to the same standard of transparency.
Real science. Real standards. No myths. Just mastery.
Organic isn’t interchangeable with “clean.”
Why “clean” isn’t a standard →