CMD Naturkosmetik

CMD Naturkosmetik is a German natural-cosmetics company based in the town of Goslar. It was founded in 1994 by Carl-Michael Diedrich, a long-time dental technician who had been making tooth and face creams for friends, and the company name is formed from his initials [2]. It produces skin, body, hair and oral care, and is best known for a tea tree oil range that grew out of Diedrich's first product development in the early 1990s.

The company works under the motto "Weniger ist mehr" ("less is more"), building each product series around a single main raw material and keeping its formulas short. Its products are certified as natural cosmetics, made in the company's own facility in Goslar and sold mainly through specialist natural-products retail rather than mass-market chains. CMD Naturkosmetik remains owner-run and active.

The company's own history traces its roots to the Diedrich family's time in California. In 1967 and 1968 the family produced avocado oil themselves, pressing it in their garage and selling it at weekly markets and by mail order. According to the company, this was also the period in which the family first came across jojoba oil and tea tree oil, two raw materials that would later shape the range.

Carl-Michael Diedrich went on to work for many years as a dental technician. Alongside that work he began making tooth and face creams, which he gave away to friends and acquaintances. As more and more people asked to buy them, he turned the hobby into a business and founded CMD Naturkosmetik in 1994. The word "Naturkosmetik" is German for natural cosmetics.

Oral care has stayed part of the range ever since. A tea tree oil toothpaste is listed among the company's bestsellers, next to a concentrated tea tree mouthwash.

Diedrich started developing a tea tree oil cosmetics series in 1992, two years before the company was formally founded. That series became the core of the business, and the company describes its early products as innovative for the market as a whole.

In February 1996 he published a book on tea tree oil, co-written with Anne Simons. The brand's website names it "Das Teebaumöl Praxisbuch", a practical handbook on the oil and its uses.

Over the following decades the company grew from a one-man operation into a production business. By its own account it now has around 40 employees and more than 160 products. In autumn 2016 it moved into its own headquarters in Goslar, a town on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The new headquarters includes a factory outlet shop, where products are sold directly to visitors.

Today the company's homepage refers to more than 30 years of producing natural cosmetics.

CMD Naturkosmetik is an independent, owner-run business. The company's legal notice lists it as "CMD Naturkosmetik, Carl-Michael Diedrich e.K.", with Diedrich as the owner [10]. The suffix "e.K." stands for eingetragener Kaufmann, the German legal form for a registered sole trader. No parent company, investors or acquisitions are documented.

Besides its own brand, the company offers contract manufacturing and private-label production, making products that other companies then sell under their own names [11].

The "less is more" motto is the idea the company returns to most often. CMD Naturkosmetik says it uses as few different raw materials per product as possible, reasoning that the fewer substances are applied to the skin, the fewer can trigger an allergic reaction [4]. The company adds that shorter formulas leave room for a higher share of caring ingredients.

Each product series is built around one main raw material, such as tea tree oil or wild rose oil. The company says it sources these from certified organic farming wherever possible. Its stated mission is to develop and produce caring cosmetics based on natural and renewable raw materials. It describes its guiding values as sustainability, naturalness and quality.

The formulas also follow a list of exclusions. According to the company, its products contain no laureth or lauryl sulphates, which are common foaming agents. Its certified products are made without synthetic emulsifiers, paraffins, mineral-oil raw materials or PEGs, and the certification standard it follows also excludes parabens, silicones and phthalates. The brand's FAQ answers the question of whether its care products contain microplastics with a plain "no" [3].

Distribution is part of the positioning. CMD Naturkosmetik says it relies on specialist retailers and on sellers focused on natural cosmetics, and that its products are not offered by mass-market retailers or discount chains [12]. Its FAQ adds that the range is not sold in drugstores. The main channels are organic shops, health-food stores (known in Germany as Reformhäuser), pharmacies and beauty salons, supplied through organic wholesalers. The company also runs its own online shop, which ships abroad.

The range covers face care, body care and hair care, along with oral care. The online shop carries well over a hundred products, from body lotions and face care sets to wellness and body oils. Utopia.de describes the assortment as a broad range of care and wellness products, each series built around one main active ingredient.

The tea tree oil line, sold as Teebaumöl Classic, remains the centrepiece. It now includes more than 30 products, and the company describes it as the largest tea tree oil series in the world [2]. The line ranges from skin care to the toothpaste and mouthwash concentrate that the brand lists among its bestsellers. Other series follow the same single-ingredient pattern, with jojoba oil also offered as a product in its own right.

Most of the range is vegan, though not all of it. The company says a large share of its products contain no animal-derived ingredients at all; the exceptions use ingredients such as whey, honey, propolis or silk. CMD Naturkosmetik states that none of its products are tested on animals and that it is included on PETA's list of cosmetics brands that do not test on animals.

On certification, the brand's homepage presents its products as ICADA-certified natural cosmetics [1]. Its certification pages name a second scheme, the NCS Natural Cosmetic Standards, and say the products meet its rules [8].

The company also states that its manufacturing is audited every year against ISO 22716, the international standard for good manufacturing practice in cosmetics [5]. All production takes place on site in Goslar.

The company links its environmental approach closely to small-batch production in Germany. It says it avoids outer cartons where possible and pads its parcels with shredded waste paper. Body oils and jojoba oil are filled into bottles made of a glass-polymer material.

The sustainability website Utopia.de adds that the brand uses only natural fragrances and plant-based extraction agents, and that it has developed a packaging concept intended to be largely environmentally friendly.

Press coverage of CMD Naturkosmetik comes mainly from German consumer and sustainability media. No industry awards are documented.

The consumer-testing magazine ÖKO-TEST reviewed the Teebaumöl Classic mouthwash in its 2009 health and fitness guide. In a follow-up published in its March 2010 issue, the magazine noted that the product contains alcohol and should therefore not be used by children or swallowed. It had found these warnings missing from the pack, and the manufacturer then added them. ÖKO-TEST still criticised the use of alcohol in the product and the lack of any statement on the pack about how much it contains. The overall rating stayed at "good" [13].

Utopia.de includes the company in its reader-rated list of natural cosmetics manufacturers, where it was placed 17th of 31 on the basis of two reader reviews. The site describes CMD Naturkosmetik as a certified natural cosmetics brand whose "less is more" motto is reflected in a series of natural, minimalist care products, and notes that almost the entire range is vegan [14].

CMD Naturkosmetik is active. Its most recent dated news post, published on 20 November 2025, describes a do-it-yourself Advent calendar made from its products [9]. The homepage also presents new products and operates a working online shop.

The company remains owner-run under its founder and continues to produce its range in Goslar. Its stated distribution centres on specialist natural-products retail and pharmacies in Germany, supplemented by direct sales through its own shop and factory outlet.