What does 'natural' mean to you?

I'm feeling a bit tired today so this will be short. We had a big day yesterday going into Brisbane to collect my friend from hospital. We brought her home and waited until her family arrived then came back home again. That big city traffic really gets to me now. I need a while to recover. I'll spend a relaxing day at home today and I'll be in the garden to take photos for a post I'll do tomorrow on tomatoes.

But I have a couple of important bits of information for you today. Burt's Bees contacted me a while ago to ask for help with their survey in Australia. I've only used one of their products that was sent to me from the USA, and I loved it. Now they're selling in Australia so I'm happy to help. I forgot about the survey and remembered it yesterday, so better late then never, I'll share part of what they sent:

We are about to launch an online survey asking Australian consumers about their concerns and attitudes to ‘natural’ ingredients – what ‘natural’ means to them and what matters to them about ‘natural’ ingredients in personal care (meaning products for body, face, hair etc). Burt’s Bees has done a similar survey in the US but as far as we know, no-one’s done one here.

Why are we doing this? Firstly, because we just don’t want to make assumptions about what Australians think and know about ‘natural’ in personal care. Obviously Burt’s Bees is a ‘natural’ focused company but this survey is about understanding what consumers actually want. All sorts of assumptions get made in marketing and both Burt’s Bees and Porter Novelli Adelaide have decided that’s not enough for us. So we’re asking. We’ve decided to approach online communities because we know connecting online is one way consumers can share their unfiltered views and concerns, and that’s what we want to hear. Yes, you will be talking to a PR company and a manufacturer in the industry - because we genuinely want to know what people are thinking.

We will use the results of the survey in the following ways: we will report back to the blogs and site communities that link to the survey on what we find, we will share the results with the health and beauty media in Australia and we will make the results available via the Burt’s Bees website. We hope the results will help address any concerns or confusions about what ‘natural’ means and how it is presented in Australia. (One result of a similar survey in the US was that Burt’s Bees joined together with other major natural personal care companies to develop a national standard for ‘natural’ via the Natural Products Association.

The survey is for Australian residents and will run from August 20 until November 14. You can find it here.

ADDITION:
Thanks to my readers for alerting me to the sale of Burts Bees to Clorox. There is some information about it here at organicconsumers.org.

UK READERS here is a survey for you.
For those not in the UK or Australia, RSPCA is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Stefan from the UK RSPCA sent this:

For the first time ever, the RSPCA Good Business Awards is open to the public through the People’s Choice Supermarket award which means that people can vote for the supermarket they think is doing the most for animal welfare.

Further information on the award and the achievements of each of the shortlisted supermarkets is available at here.

Take care, I'll see you tomorrow.