WASHINGTON — If you want a lotion, soap or lip balm free of chemicals and synthetics, you'd better read the fine print. The Agriculture Department is taking its round, green "USDA Organic" label off personal-care products and cosmetics.
When it created the seal in 2002, the primary intent was to certify the organic claims made by food producers, such as meat from animals that are free of antibiotics and aren't confined indoors, or vegetables grown without pesticides.
But the department also opened the door to making a wide range of other products eligible for the label: cosmetics and personal-care items, pet food, dietary supplements, fish and textile products such as cotton T-shirts.
"The feeling was, if your product was composed of agricultural ingredients, and you thought you could get certified, you were welcome to try," said Barbara Robinson, head of the department's National Organic Program.
Three years later, the department decided it had gone too far. In April, it began telling companies their cosmetics and other personal-care products can't be government certified as organic, after all. Also off the table are fish and pet food, but only for now. The department is creating task forces to make rules for certifying these products. Still being decided is whether dietary supplements can use the seal.
"As time went by, and legal counsel in the department and senior policy officials took a closer look, they determined that wouldn't really stand up in a court of law," Ms. Robinson said.
That is bad news to Nancy Piersel of Finland, Minn. She looks for the organic seal because she has a disorder called multiple chemical sensitivity, which causes allergy-like symptoms when she is exposed to many substances.
The seal "gave me more confidence to try that product," said Ms. Piersel, 48 years old. She makes her own lip gloss and, before the seal became available, would call companies to find out more about ingredients before buying something new. "I have to be very careful about what I use," she said. "Now...I'll have to do more digging."
The department's reversal also is frustrating to some companies. David Bronner, president of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, said his company spent some $100,000 to ensure that his soaps, lotions and lip balms met the standards for using the seal.
Organic means a product contains all-natural, nonsynthetic substances that are grown without using conventional pesticides or fertilizer, biotechnology or radiation. And it means meat and dairy products have come from animals raised on organic feed, given access to the outdoors and never given antibiotics or growth hormones.
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