The natural organic beauty industry has come on leaps and bounds from the days when you would have to hunt down the home-made avocado moisturiser tucked away at the back of a health shop.

With so many natural, pseudo-natural, botanical, natural mix products, it is baffling for the average consumer road-testing the ethical lifestyle with so many ranges of natural organic skincare products to choose from.

Every skin care product on the market lures us with promises of instant radiance, brilliance, shine and youthfulness as we all attempt to keep those wrinkles and crowfeet at bay. But more of us are chemical-wary and going back to basics disillusioned by the hundreds of anti-ageing, chemically produced creams and lotions giving us that artificial boost.

The trend for organic skin care and organic beauty has turned into a craze. In Britain the organic market as a whole has almost reached 2 billion, with a 30 percent increase in the number of health and beauty licensees approved by the Soil Association; the New York Times recently highlighted sales of organic personal-care items reached $350 (176m) in America.

Organic skincare ranges are being endorsed by celebrities in the ecological overdrive. Over the past seven months, London's large department stores have showcased the latest organic skincare range by Stella McCartney's skin care range Care.

Similarly, the organic skin care range Nude, another hot new organic skin care contender, places itself firmly at the high end organic skincare range. Created by Bryan Meehan, the co-founder of the British organic store Fresh and Wild, who after selling Whole Foods for a coll $38m in 2004, directed his investor nouse to the natural organic skincare market. Bono and his Ali Hewson are investors, expanding their portfolio of planet saving activities. The Nude range is also backed by the model Christy Turlington, who herself has her own Ayurvedic skincare range, Sundari.

So many organic skin care products are vying for our attention in the burgeoning organic beauty market - what do we know about what's organic and what's not? The answer? The main chemical culprits are glycol, parabens and sodium lauryl sulphates. The heads-up of the organic skincare ranges to look out for when you head off on your natural organic discovery; at the top of the natural organic skin care ranges is probably Nude and Care.

Older ranges are also of high organic standard: Dr Hauschka, Spieza, Ren and Britain's Organic Pharmacy. The Australian, Jurlique and A'kin are top quality too. Liz Earle is probably one of the leading organic skin care veterans with her range. Also the Ayurvedic organic skin care ranges drawn from the Indian science of addressing dis-ease within the body are of worthy mention too, these being Sundari and the Bharti Vyas range.

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