It’s no secret that clean beauty is the talk of the town. Recent years have seen the rise of countless “clean” brands and banned ingredient lists. But what does “clean beauty” really mean and how clean are your products really?
WHAT IS CLEAN BEAUTY
Although the concept of clean beauty has been around since the 90s, the phrase largely became popularized in the 2010s and 20s. All of a sudden, “clean” brands were popping up left and right - and the marketing was working. Very quickly, beauty retailers saw a huge rise in demand for products marketed as “clean.” With Beautycounter (an online retailer for clean skincare) being valued at $1 billion in 2021, other retailers hurried to keep up, adding “clean” labels to any products that fit the bill. But there was one small problem - no one could agree on what “clean” actually meant.
MYTH OR MARKETING
For consumers, we hear “clean” and we expect that the product in question is going to be better for us in some way. Maybe it uses better ingredients or maybe it’s more sustainably made. Either way, there’s an expectation that the product is, simply put, cleaner.
But things get more complicated from the brand side. There are lots of steps to bringing a product to market, from ingredient sourcing to packaging design. So, what regulations does a product need to follow in order for it to be clean?
THE LABELLING PROBLEM
“Clean beauty” is not officially regulated by the FDA. For independent brands, that means there is no prerequisite to labelling a product as “clean.” But that doesn’t mean there’s no merit to the phrase at all; since the clean beauty buzz of the 2010s, most retailers with “clean” programs have set their own standards. Both Sephora and Ulta, for example, have implemented their own packaging and ingredient regulations for products receiving their “clean” seal.
THE PROBLEM FOR CONSUMERS
Although many clean beauty programs are similar, the lack of regulation on the term leaves the burden on consumers - It’s up to us to decide which ingredient bans are important to us and how much we care about certain sustainable packaging choices. But let’s face it - who has time to be doing all that research?
SOSHE’S ANSWER
For those who take clean beauty seriously, there is one regulatory program that stands out from the rest. In 2019, Credo Beauty, a clean beauty retailer, introduced the industry’s most comprehensive standard for “clean” products. They called it the “Credo Clean Standard.” What’s different about the Credo Clean Standard is not only does it ban potentially harmful ingredients (2700+ to be exact) and set sustainable packaging guidelines, it’s one of the first to regulate terms like “organic” and “alcohol free” too. There are 4 main pillars to the Standard:
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Clean Ingredients: Credo bans over 2700+ ingredients, one of the most rigorous standards in the industry.
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Packaging: The Standard focused on recyclable and refillable packaging. Packaging must be sustainably sourced and designed.
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Testing: Brands must test on human skin and eyes to ensure that products are safe. This results in longer testing periods which can span for around 3-6 months and can be revisited even after products have launched, if necessary.
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Labelling and Claims: Brands must use consistent naming conventions for cosmetic ingredients (dictated by the INCI or “International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients”).
SOSHE is proud to abide by the Credo Clean Standard. Our goal is to make products that you don’t have to question. Our products are sustainably sourced, extensively tested, and almost always refillable.
THE BOTTOM LINE
At the end of the day, clean beauty doesn’t have a clean answer, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. For the first time, the rise of the clean beauty movement has put a certain pressure on brands to use better ingredients and be transparent about what they’re putting in their products. It’s also created more choices for consumers looking for “cleaner” alternatives to traditional beauty products. The next step for brands is making sure those alternatives come with proper education. Regardless of what the clean beauty market looks like, our mission at SOSHE remains the same: deliver products that work, that you don’t have to question.