Why I Went Organic Before Anyone Knew What It Meant
When I started talking about organic beauty in the early 2000s, people looked at me like I'd said something faintly eccentric. Organic? Isn't that for vegetables? And I'd explain, as patiently as I could, that your skin is your largest organ. Everything you put on it goes into your body. Why would you fill it with chemicals you can't pronounce when there's another way?
I wasn't ahead of my time because I was particularly clever. I was ahead of my time because I was paying attention.
It Started With a Fragrance
I'd always been interested in natural beauty — I was making my own face masks in the kitchen long before it was a lifestyle trend, much to my children's amusement. But the real turning point came when I started developing a fragrance. I wanted something that smelled extraordinary and was made from ingredients I was proud of. Real botanical oils. Nothing synthetic. Nothing that would give you a headache in a lift.
The perfumers I worked with said it couldn't be done to commercial standards. I said it could. It took time and it took stubbornness, but Jo Wood Organics was born — and Amka and Usiku remain two of the things I'm most proud of in my life.
What I Found Out About Conventional Beauty Products
The more I researched, the more uncomfortable I became with what's in mainstream cosmetics. Parabens. Synthetic fragrances. Petroleum derivatives. Chemicals linked to hormone disruption. Things that, when you read the research, you really don't want sitting on your skin every day for thirty years.
I'm not here to frighten anyone. But I do think we deserve to know what we're putting on our bodies, and we deserve better options. The skin doesn't lie — when I switched fully to natural and organic products, my skin changed noticeably. Calmer, clearer, more balanced. It wasn't placebo. It was chemistry.
The Green Beauty Swaps That Actually Worked
Some natural alternatives are brilliant. Some are genuinely not as good and I'll be honest about that. But the ones that work — a really good rosehip oil, a properly formulated natural SPF, a botanical cleansing balm — work better than anything I used in the conventional world.
My absolute non-negotiables now: a good facial oil (I've been using rosehip for twenty years), a mineral SPF that doesn't leave a white cast, and a natural deodorant that actually does the job. If you'd told me in 1985 that natural deodorant would one day work, I'd have laughed. But here we are.
Why It Still Matters Now
Organic beauty is mainstream now, which is wonderful. But I notice that as it's grown, some brands use the word "natural" very loosely indeed. Read the ingredients. If you can't understand what's in it, that's worth questioning.
The real thing — certified organic, genuinely clean formulas, transparent sourcing — is out there. It's what I look for in every product I recommend in Jo's Edit, and it's the standard I set for everything that bears my name.
Twenty-odd years ago I was considered a bit of an oddity for caring about this. Now the whole world has caught up. I find that rather satisfying.
