Much of a company’s impact on the world comes from the ingredients it uses, so we’re big sticklers on the ingredients we use and what goes into our products. Our goal is to use all certified organic ingredients (using USDA National Organic Program standards), and in those cases where a non-certified organic must be used, it must still be sourced from nature.

Certified organic ingredients are grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides, all of which can pollute and damage our environment and get into your products. “Natural” ingredients may be natural, but if they are grown with agriculture chemicals, not only can they end up on your skin and cause irritation, but they can also pollute our soil and land. Yuck.

In addition, organic farming can greatly reduce the use of fossil fuels since its practices don’t use agricultural chemicals, which can account for over half of on-farm energy use. Organic practices like crop diversity, nutrient replacement, and water conservation also lead to healthier soil and land. Worms everywhere love organic farmers.

In addition, we source Fair Trade ingredients when possible and make this a part of our sustainability mission. The organic shea butter in all of our bar soaps is certified Fair Trade by TransFair USA, one of the world’s leading certifiers of Fair Trade ingredients. The Fair Trade Certified™ Label guarantees consumers that strict economic, social and environmental criteria were met in the production and trade of an agricultural product (to learn more, visit: www.transfairusa.org). One of the goals for LEAP is to continue to source additional Fair Trade ingredients for our products.

Our products are also cruelty-free and we never test on animals. We support the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (CCIC) and PETA, and we proudly show the “Bunny” symbols on our site and products. These symbols identify companies like LEAP that do not test on animals. Besides, most of the animals we know live outside and enjoy nature’s free showers, so why would they even need to test our soaps? Exactly.

Lastly, and most importantly, we proudly list every ingredient we use on our labels and website. We’d have it no other way. Cross our hearts.

For more information on organic agriculture, please check out the following websites to learn more:

1) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s site: http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/torg.html

2) USDA National Organic Program’s site: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/nop

3) Organic Trade Association’s site: http://www.ota.com/index.html