I searched briefly and found a response from The Body Shop:
> This is a wider beauty industry issue and we, like many other global beauty brands, have been forced to use synthetic scrub particles for face products in the last few years as safety restrictions in some markets around the world have become more stringent. These safety restrictions require us to ensure that all scrub particles used on the face are consistently rounded in shape, which is difficult to achieve with natural particles. In order to provide a global product formulation that is stable and safe for use we have, unfortunately, had to resort to synthetic materials such as polyethylene.
I agree that there may be other reasons to choose plastic over sugar - companies don't generally do things that are bad for them - I was only disputing the disparity in the raw cost of the ingredients. Personally I've noticed that sugar based scrubs don't hold up as well, they tend to either dry out in the jar or get too wet. Fussy consumers who want life to look like a TV commercial are part of the problem here.
> This is a wider beauty industry issue and we, like many other global beauty brands, have been forced to use synthetic scrub particles for face products in the last few years as safety restrictions in some markets around the world have become more stringent. These safety restrictions require us to ensure that all scrub particles used on the face are consistently rounded in shape, which is difficult to achieve with natural particles. In order to provide a global product formulation that is stable and safe for use we have, unfortunately, had to resort to synthetic materials such as polyethylene.
http://5gyres.org/posts/2013/04/26/get_plastic_off_my_face_a...
I agree that there may be other reasons to choose plastic over sugar - companies don't generally do things that are bad for them - I was only disputing the disparity in the raw cost of the ingredients. Personally I've noticed that sugar based scrubs don't hold up as well, they tend to either dry out in the jar or get too wet. Fussy consumers who want life to look like a TV commercial are part of the problem here.