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ECOCERT vs. COSMOS: Decoding Certification Logos

There are numerous organic certifications worldwide, each with a wide variety of logos. Even within COSMOS certification alone, there are over 10 different types. So, what exactly sets these logos apart? How to distinguish between the logos of COSMOS and ECOCERT which are two major certification organizations that Inna Organic works with.

COSMOS: A Unified Standard for Five Certifications

Many people mistakenly believe that using organic ingredients automatically makes a certified organic, but that’s not the case. In addition to requiring a certain percentage of natural and organic ingredients according to certification guidelines, the manufacturing process, raw material procurement, and storage must also meet the certification body’s standards. Products must pass annual factory inspections, document reviews, and more to potentially obtain natural/organic certification.

The COSMOS natural/organic certification, which Inna Organic has obtained, was jointly established in 2010 by five leading organic certification organizations from Germany, France, Italy, and the UK. These organizations created an integrated standard for beauty and skincare products to eliminate unnecessary competition among themselves.

These five founding certification organizations are:

  1. BDIH (German Association of Industries and Trading Firms)
  2. Cosmebio (French Professional Association for Natural and Organic Cosmetics)
  3. Ecocert Greenlife SAS (French International Ecological Certification Center)
  4. ICEA (Italian Institute for Ethical and Environmental Certification)
  5. Soil Association (UK Soil Association)

Although COSMOS was jointly established by these five organizations, full integration is still in progress. Currently, each certification organization maintains two parallel one based on the COSMOS guideliness and the other using its original certification criteria. Since Inna Organic has chosen ECOCERT as its certifying body, so the remainder of this article will use ECOCERT as an example to explain these certifications.

Understanding COSMOS and ECOCERT Certification Standards

The table below compares the logos for “ECOCERT certifications using COSMOS standards” and “ECOCERT’s own certification standards,” allowing you to instantly distinguish between these seemingly similar logos.

Certifications marked in green have been obtained by Inna Organic

Certification Logo

Certification Name

Key Standards

COSMOS ORGANIC 

  • Over 20% of total ingredients must be organic. (For cleansing products and non-emulsified products, over 10%)
  • Over 95% of physically processed agricultural ingredients (PPAI) must be organic.

    • COSMOS NATURAL

  • All ingredients must be COSMOS-approved organic or natural ingredients, and the product must comply with COSMOS standards.

    • ECOCERT ORGANIC COSMETIC

  • Over 10% of total ingredients must be organically grown.
  • Over 95% of plant ingredients must be organic.

    • ECOCERT NATURAL COSMETIC

  • Over 5% of total ingredients must be organically grown.
  • Over 50% of plant ingredients must be organic.

    • As you can see from the table above, COSMOS ORGANIC has stricter organic content requirements than ECOCERT ORGANIC. Since COSMOS was created as a premium standard by integrating five major organic certification organizations, it is not only more comprehensive and rigorous than their original standards, but also represents the evolving trend in European organic certification (currently COSMOS is still in the process of integration, and whether each organization’s original certifications will be retained in the future remains uncertain).

    This is why we have chosen COSMOS ORGANIC as our standard for quality control.

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