For beauty products all companies who carry the Fairtrade mark must have a producer partnership plan which outlines how they seek to support the producers they buy from.
It is not necessary for all ingredients in a beauty product to be Fairtrade for the product to be certified Fairtrade. This is because many beauty products are made up of a mix of water, synthetic and natural ingredients and it is only the natural ingredients that can be certified as Fairtrade. However to receive the Fairtrade mark any ingredient that can be certified Fairtrade must be sourced from certified producers.
The Fairtrade policy on cosmetics covers ‘leave-on’ products (e.g. lotions, body oils & face masks) and ‘wash off’ products (e.g. shampoos, shower gels, soaps and toothpaste). For each product category there are minimum levels of Fairtrade content in the final product:
‘Leave on’ products must contain at least 5% Fairtrade certified ingredients
‘Wash off’ products must contain at least 2% Fairtrade certified ingredients
The threshold levels differ for leave on and wash off products in order to ensure that product performance is not affected.