It happens in a precise moment, when doubt creeps in. When you pick up a jar of cream, look at a newly bought t-shirt, or uncork a bottle with a certified label, and ask yourself: what does the label actually mean?
It’s a legitimate question, and an increasingly common one. In a market saturated with brands, claims and promises, finding your way has become a full-time job. The problem isn’t a lack of information, but often the opposite: too much communication, too many symbols, too many hashtags. And amid all this noise, the reality of what you’re buying risks getting completely lost.
Certified food: what does a DOP label actually guarantee?
The DOP certification guarantees that a product has been grown, produced and processed in a specific geographical area, with quality standards closely tied to the natural environment and local traditions. It sounds like a solid guarantee. And in many cases it is.
But there’s an important distinction that marketing tends to blur: a DOP certifies the origin and compliance with a production specification. It does not certify that the product is the best on the market in absolute terms. These labels define certain properties of the product in a specific way, above all the geographical provenance and the method of production.
There is also an internal hierarchy worth knowing. The DOP requires that the entire supply chain, from raw material to processing, takes place within the designated area. The IGP is less strict: it requires that at least one phase of the process takes place in the geographical zone of reference. In practice, an IGP product can have raw materials sourced from elsewhere. It’s not a flaw in the system, but it’s something the average consumer almost never knows.
Fraud and counterfeiting: the dark side of designations
The hardest problem to spot is another one entirely: fraud. The most exposed products are precisely those with a Designation of Origin, because Made in Italy is highly attractive to fraudulent producers. The mechanisms vary: from substituting raw materials that don’t comply with the specification, to using evocative terms like “Parma-style” or “Parmigiano-style” for products that have nothing to do with the certified production, all the way to outright counterfeiting of the brand. The phenomenon is constantly evolving and controls, however widespread, cannot cover the entire supply chain in real time.
Yet, according to research by the Luiss Business School on awareness and perceived value of DOP and IGP designations, over 96% of Italians can recognise these labels, but the figure drops to 55% among those who are aware that their distinctive character lies in the connection to a specific territory. A gap that tells us how much these symbols weigh on purchasing decisions, and how important it is that behind those symbols there is substance, not just reputation.
Fast fashion clothing
If there is one sector where the gap between perception and reality has become abysmal, it is clothing. Fast fashion has built a system in which low prices, continuous collections and aspirational storytelling combine to make it almost impossible to understand what you’re actually buying.
Filling this information void in recent months has been Mattia Berveglieri: an entrepreneur from Castelfranco Emilia with twenty years of experience in the textile sector and founder of the brand Numb. He has turned his technical expertise into a digital mission with a format as simple as it is disruptive: he walks into major brand stores, analyses materials, cuts and finishes on camera, offering the public a magnifying glass on the real quality-to-price ratio. The spark came during a company relocation: he found himself throwing away metres and metres of fabrics and production materials, and staring at that full skip, he wondered how much he was putting into the environment without even realising it.
The golden rule he suggests to consumers is to check the percentage of natural fibres, while applying common sense. A wool or alpaca sweater can tolerate a small percentage of polyamide for structure and durability. A t-shirt that is 50% cotton and 50% polyester is a different matter: that one can stay on the shelf.
Health and microplastics: the hidden cost of synthetic fabrics
The issue is not just about the quality of the garment, but also the health of the person wearing it. Synthetic fabrics like polyester, nylon, acrylic and elastane are often treated with chemicals such as formaldehyde, phthalates and azo dyes, which can cause irritation and skin reactions. Plastic microfibres are not inert: they can penetrate the body and release additives and toxic compounds, with greater risk in sportswear worn for long periods against the skin.
The environmental impact is equally real. Synthetic textiles are responsible for between 16% and 35% of primary microplastics entering the oceans each year. In 2024, according to the Textile Exchange Materials Market Report 2025, polyester accounted for 59% of global fibre production, with 88% coming from virgin fossil sources, while cotton stood at just 19%. More than half of the clothes produced in the world are made, essentially, of plastic.
Greenwashing is also a structural problem in this sector. When you read “recycled polyester”, it’s worth remembering that it is still polyester, and that the recycling process itself has an environmental impact. These are often operations that serve primarily to improve brand reputation rather than genuinely reduce their impact: despite growth in absolute volume of recycled polyester, from 8.9 million tonnes in 2023 to 9.3 million in 2024, its market share actually fell to 12% because virgin polyester production grew even faster.
Korean skincare and the counterfeiting problem
The same pattern repeats itself in cosmetics. K-beauty has conquered feeds across the world with exotic ingredients, kawaii packaging and promises of perfect skin. The counterfeit cosmetics market is a structural and growing phenomenon: according to a joint OECD-EUIPO study, cosmetics are the most seized category at European borders among counterfeit goods purchased online, with estimated losses of 3 billion euros per year in the European Union alone. In Italy, 21% of households admit to having purchased a counterfeit cosmetic at least once, and 12.9% did so intentionally.
The real risk is not “applying plastic to your skin”, as you sometimes read in alarmist terms. It is something more subtle: products with altered concentrations of active ingredients or inadequate preservatives.
Reading the label helps here too. Ingredients are listed in descending order of concentration, and the first five generally make up the predominant part of the formulation. A product that highlights a rare ingredient on its packaging but lists it near the bottom of a long ingredients list is communicating something very different from what it promises. Many producers include misleading information: images depicting raw materials present in minimal quantities, “natural” and “organic” claims that refer only to a handful of ingredients in the entire list, or “paraben-free” labels that conceal other potentially problematic substances.
The thread that connects everything
Food, fashion, skincare: different sectors, same mechanism. A system that generates more value the less the consumer knows. Certifications become pricing tools rather than real guarantees.
The most common mistake, as Berveglieri himself observes, is the simplest one: not looking at labels. People buy on impulse whatever is fashionable, without asking questions. And brands know this, and build precise communication strategies around it.
Something is moving on the regulatory front. With Legislative Decree no. 30 of 20 February 2026, published in the Official Gazette on 9 March, Italy transposed European Directive 2024/825 on empowering consumers for the green transition, aimed at countering misleading commercial practices related to environmental sustainability. The new provisions will apply from 27 September 2026. Among the practices now considered deceptive are environmental claims without objective support, such as “eco-friendly” with no data to back it up, and unclear information on characteristics like repairability, durability or recyclability. It is not a definitive solution, but it is a signal that the axis is shifting: declaring something will no longer be enough. It will have to be proven.
In the meantime, the power remains where it has always been: in awareness.