Kittish
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By request, a new thread to continue this discussion.
I personally like nature-identical synthetics, especially for colorants. It brings the cost of the material down dramatically in some cases, and gives pretty good assurance that the pigment won't contain anything BUT pigment.
See, here's where it gets sticky, at least as far as I can see. According to FDA definitions, mineral pigments aren't actually 'natural', simply because they are not derived from a plant or animal source. But 'artificial' doesn't apply either, because the substances DO occur naturally. And 'synthetic' is a whole other sort of thing, more closely akin to 'natural' than to 'artificial'. In fact, a number of synthetic materials are 'nature-identical', so are they really not natural? And, as far as I understand, hand made soap can't really be legally labeled 'all natural' in the US. Commercial sodium hydroxide isn't obtained from either plant or animal sources.Originally Posted by SaltedFig
Kittish, I get the point of what you are saying, but to answer your question directly, no, a lab-synthesized identical duplicate is synthetic, not natural.
I personally like nature-identical synthetics, especially for colorants. It brings the cost of the material down dramatically in some cases, and gives pretty good assurance that the pigment won't contain anything BUT pigment.