How to read the word natural on a bottle

Natural is the most common word on a bottle of wash and the least useful. Every brand says it. It has no agreed definition. So here is how to read it.

Look for a figure

A word can be said by anyone. A figure has to come from somewhere. If a brand says natural and gives no number, it is describing a feeling. If it gives a number, ask who counted.

Look for a name

Only Good® had every formula audited by Biorius, in Belgium, ingredient by ingredient, and prints the result on each bottle's page: the natural content and the natural origin, to three decimal places. The two are different measures, and they differ from bottle to bottle, because the formulas do. A hand wash and a body wash of the same scent carry different figures. A single round number repeated across a range is a sign that nobody counted.

Then stop reading and wash your hands

None of this is the point of the product. It is the floor. The audit is there so that the word on the front means something, and having settled that, the rest of the bottle is about how your skin feels afterwards: not tight, not stripped, and smelling of peach, or cedar, or sage, or coconut.

We would rather you never had to think about the figure again. It is on the page for the day you want to.