Green blogger challenges Ava Anderson Non Toxic products again

Posted 2/10/16

The blogger who called Ava Anderson Non Toxic dish soap "a fraud" recently released results from lab tests done to four additional Ava Anderson products.

According to a Feb. 9 post on the ecofriendlymamausa.com blog, all four products that …

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Green blogger challenges Ava Anderson Non Toxic products again

Posted
The blogger who called Ava Anderson Non Toxic dish soap "a fraud" recently released results from lab tests done to four additional Ava Anderson products. According to a Feb. 9 post on the ecofriendlymamausa.com blog, all four products that were tested — eye cream, diaper cream, dish soap and kids lotion — had labels that were inaccurate. Laboratoire PhytoChemia, a lab in Quebec, Canada, reportedly concluded that some products were lacking ingredients that had been listed on the labels, and other products included ingredients that had not been listed on labels. Wisconsin resident Jess Brandt, who started the ecofriendlymamausa.com blog about four years ago, criticized Ava Anderson Non Toxic and the Barrington family that started the company. "This is about a terrible, awful injustice that was done in the name of organic products," wrote Ms. Brandt. "This equals the biggest, greatest greenwashing scam in the history of organic personal care products, in my opinion and to my knowledge." Last month the Anderson family announced it was cutting ties to the company, stating that there were two reasons for the decision — relentless harassment and bullying against the family, as well as problems with product suppliers. "We created this line to share an important health message and are devastated to have discovered this. We shared the information with all of our independent representatives and affected customers." On Jan. 27, company president and founder Kim Anderson said the products had been sent to an independent lab, which found that there were "no chemicals of concern detected above a concentration of .02 percent." The results produced during the PhytoChemia analysis — the tests ordered by Ms. Brandt — listed all the compounds that were found in the products. Comments were offered regarding certain compounds and a conclusion was offered as well. For the eye cream analysis, the conclusion stated "…we failed to detect anything that was indicative of Calendula officinalis and Helichrysum italicums essential oils." The ingredient list included, among other things, Calendula officinalis flower oil and Helichrysum italicum (organic Italian everlasting) oil. Ms. Anderson said in an interview that two of the company's seven suppliers had been using non-Ava Anderson approved ingredients in their products without the company's knowledge. She said her company pulled the products off its website once they discovered the problem. Ms. Anderson said her company has always worked hard to do the right thing — from selling non-harmful products to donating to area charities. Ms. Anderson would not release the names of the suppliers who had allegedly misled her company. Ms. Brandt said Ava Anderson Non Toxic needs to be held responsible for the labeling inaccuracies. "Whether the Anderson family knew about it or not is beside the point. They put their name on these products. It happened," she wrote. Ms. Brandt said she was disappointed by the lab results. "I wanted to be wrong about all of my concerns with Ava Anderson Non Toxic," she wrote. "Believe me; no one wants organic kelp extract to be a functional ingredient in dish soap more than I do. No one wanted to dismiss those who wrote me over the years saying this and that doesn’t add up or this product smells way too strong for essential oils, more than I did." The Anderson family has stated that a new management company will take over Ava Anderson Non Toxic in the near future, and that the name of the company will change. A specific transition date has not been released.

Ava Anderson company management issued this statement recently: “We stand on our record of having provided excellent products through more than fifteen thousand passionate Consultants to hundreds of thousands of satisfied customers during the last six years. We have acknowledged that there were a few errors in labeling, which have been corrected, but reaffirm that in no case do these reflect the introduction of any harmful ingredients or chemicals to our products. Any suggestions to the contrary are either ill-informed or ill-intentioned and have no basis in fact.

“Our products remain the best alternative to anything a customer can find on their local store shelves. And we have taken the extraordinary step in the last month of moving the production of all of our products to in-house manufacturing to insure that we are in complete control of our ingredients and process.”

 

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