Have your shampoo and eat it, too

Step into Horst Rechelbacher's cosmetics lab, and you are wandering into a kind of Candyland. The little golden vials and bags of ruby-red powder lining the shelves are filled with concoctions of lemon, thyme and berries.

You could probably tear open one of those bags of powder, and if you wanted to, gulp down its contents of ground strawberry, grape skin, and elderberry. You could also smear those contents on your face, if you prefer. Rechelbacher is creating make-up that would allow you to do both.

"I can make cocktails of colors, put it in an edible wax, and make a lipstick," he exclaims.

Rechelbacher was born in Austria 66 years ago. He founded Minneapolis-based Aveda in 1978. His plant-based approach to beauty products shaped Aveda into an internationally known natural and organic personal product company.

Rechelbacher sold the company to Estee Lauder for $300 million about 10 years ago, but he stuck around as a consultant for eight years. During that time, he was running Intelligent Nutrients, which largely sold food supplements. A non-compete agreement with Aveda prevented Rechelbacher from starting a new personal products line at Intelligent Nutrients until this year.

Rechelbacher's ambition now is to show the personal products industry that it does not need synthetic petrochemicals to make good products. In his philosophy, such products should be food grade.

"Anything we put on the body, ends up in the body. If you put it on the skin, it ends up in the body, it just takes a little slower. If you put it in the lips, it goes quickly. That's why watch what you're putting on the body because the body will own it."

Rechelbacher is working with food scientists instead of cosmetics scientists. His lead scientist has been sustaining living cells with shampoo made from organic rice for the past year to prove the shampoo's nutritional value.

"That's the sole food the cell is getting is that shampoo. That's a pretty far-out story in itself," says Rechelbacher.

All the ingredients in the new Intelligent Nutrients personal products line will be certified 100 percent organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A number of beauty product makers are seeking the USDA stamp of approval for ingredients.

But the certification standard is designed for food, not beauty products. That is not good enough for some industry watchers.

"I think it's a stamp of quality and a step in the right direction, but just because it's organic, doesn't mean it's safe."

Sean Gray is a senior analyst at the watchdog group the Environmental Working Group. He favors organic certification of personal products. But he is still cautious in his endorsement.

"Our skin reacts differently than our stomachs do. Our skin has sensitivities and there are allergens, skin allergens, that aren't necessarily an issue when you consume them."

Part of the problem, Gray says, is that the Food and Drug Administration, which is in charge of cosmetics, needs to tighten safety standards for personal products.

Safety issues aside, some people in the beauty industry question the value of edible hair products of the sort Rechelbacher is launching.

Denny Kemp worked with Rechelbacher for 17 years and now runs his own salon in Minneapolis. Kemp is more concerned that shampoos work well on hair, not whether they are food-grade.

"I don't think we really want to eat our shampoos. We're a little more sophisticated than we were in 1980. I don't want to eat it, I want it to work."

However, if Kemp likes how Rechelbacher's Intelligent Nutrients products work, he will consider carrying them instead of Aveda's wares.

If Rechelbacher's new product line is successful, he will not see the profits in his own bank account. He does not draw a salary from the company and he donates any after-tax profits to environmental and social causes. He says he is more motivated by activism than profits.

"I'm fixing the industry in a way where it will be normal, you know, five years from now."

Rechelbacher's new line will include products ranging from lip balm to pet products. It will be available at some salons and grocery stores.

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