Melaleuca

October 15, 2006 by Debra Lynn Dadd

One of my most frequently asked questions is "Do you know about Melaleuca products and what do you think of them?"

This is a broad question because the Melalueca company sells several different catagories of products: dietary supplements, cleaning products, and bodycare products.

When I am evaluating companies and websites, I look for specific information on the products. Either the website gives general information about ingredients and standards (such as, for example, a website selling many styles of jewelry made from the same limited number of materials), or they list ingredients of specific products. For some products, such as cleaning products, copies of MSDS sheets are included on the website.

The Melaleuca website has neither materials descriptions, ingredients lists, or MSDS sheets, so I can't evaluate the products from the informaition made available on the website. As far as I can tell, these products would probably fall into the "natural" catagory on Debra's List, but I emphasize probably because I have no ingredients lists or MSDS sheets to look at.

A few years ago I was provided with ingredients lists for the cleaning products available at that time. Those lists indicated that those products contained some petrochemical ingredients that are on the list of ingredients I don't recommend. I no longer have those lists and couldn't begin to tell you what those ingredients were.

If anyone has or can obtain ingredients lists for the current products, I am happy to look at them and give my opinion.

It's important to keep in mind that in the marketplace there are not "good" products and "bad" products, but a whole spectrum of products that range from horribly toxic to the most pure of the pure. And there is a corresponding spectrum of consumers that fit with these various products. What I am looking for are the those products that are outstanding in their healthfulness and environmental sustainability. But there are many other products, while they may not be the purest, are much better than the worst toxic products from the supermarket. The question here really is where do Melaleuca products fit in the spectrum?

I've had many conversations with manufacturers of products. One thing that comes up over and over is "Yes, we could make a product that is greener, but we have to make a product that is affordable and for which there is a market." So every product is a balance between what is possible and what will sell, and also what can be produced. A smaller company can make, for example, handmade batches of soap with organic ingredients containing herbs biodynamically grown in the field next to the barn where they make the soap. A company like Melaleuca, because of the volume they do, just can't provide that type of product. So they produce what they can produce at the price that their customer will pay.

I can say with confidence that Melaleuca products are better than toxic supermarket products, but beyond that, I need ingredient lists and Material Safety Data Sheets.