The clean beauty movement has seen an upsurge in the US—and indeed the global—beauty industry. Similar to the reasons that people commit to eating non-GMO and/or organic food, clean beauty is a commitment to be more discerning and concerned about all the products they use in their everyday skin routines.
As a result, many people today search online to ensure the quality of skin care products they’re going to buy and be using in the future. They want to stay away from products with toxic or harmful ingredients.
So what is clean beauty?
People search for a concrete definition of clean beauty; however, there is no standard definition either agreed upon or regulated (in contrast to the definition of organic products). That leads to a lot of inconsistencies and confusion. Even worse, you may find skin care brands across the Internet using suspect marketing techniques to promote products that cause even more uncertainty.
A simple definition that we like is that clean beauty products do not contain ingredients that are proven or suspected to harm human or animal health, or the environment. They are safer, have transparent labeling of ingredients used in their making, and are not tested on animals.
In this blog post, you will come to know everything about clean beauty.
Understanding the combination of clean beauty and marketing
Certain words are used to describe products, such as “organic” or “natural”. While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the sale of cosmetics (including makeup and skin care) in the U.S., sadly it doesn’t have regulations for “organic” nor a definition for “natural”.1 The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulates the use of the word “organic” according to 4 ‘tiers’ (“100% organic”, “organic”, “made with organic ingredients”, certain ingredients labelled as organic)2—but only in relation to agricultural ingredients (such as herbs or botanical oils).
If a cosmetic product contains non-agricultural ingredients, the USDA has no jurisdiction on whether an organic label is justified. While the FDA has jurisdiction for such cosmetics, it doesn’t police false claims, and the Federal Trade Commission has only recently started to do so.3 And for products that are imported, there may be even fewer regulations in terms of using such descriptions.
Therefore, you can’t rely on a brand’s description of a product, especially if it uses terms like “natural”, “organic”, or “clean”. Instead, the best way to ensure you choose the right clean beauty products for your skin type is to research the company and the individual product before purchase. In other words, learning to read labels and look up ingredients is the key to getting a better understanding of a brand and whether its products are actually “clean”.
One more warning: just because a product is all natural or organic doesn’t mean it is guaranteed to be non-harmful. Certain botanical ingredients can still cause irritation, whether or not they are raised organically. And there are many examples of natural ingredients that at a minimum may irritate (e.g. bismuth in loose foundation) or at worst are dangerous (e.g. talc in loose foundation, and its association with ovarian cancer).
How to ensure that a product adheres clean beauty ‘rules’
Searching for clean beauty means you have to get yourself comfortable with reading labels, searching out scientific names, and getting detailed information about how they are made. It may take some time and you may find the process a bit complicated–especially if you aren’t used to it. However, after a while, you’ll get the hang of things. The best way to ensure you have found a clean and natural beauty product is to check for the following.
- No Harmful Ingredients: The products should not contain parabens, ethoxylated agents, formaldehyde, petroleum derivatives, phthalates, talc, silica, artificial colors and fragrances, polyethylene glycol (PEGs), triclosan, dimethicone, preservatives, SLS or other sodium sulfates–among others. To get you started, take a look at this list.
Are the ingredients all easily found on the company’s website? If not, beware!
- Cruelty-Free Certified: Look for certification that a product or its ingredients have not been tested on animals. Certifications vary in different parts of the world. In the US, the Leaping Bunny certification is used; it guarantees “no new animal testing” from a specified cut-off date.4 In Australia, Choose-Cruelty-Free requires that no ingredients used in CCF products have been tested on animals for at least 5 years in order for a brand to be certified cruelty-free.5
Did you know? Cosmetic products imported into China still have to undergo animal testing.6 This rule is hopefully set to change at the start of 2021, but for now, large companies like Estée Lauder, Shiseido and L’Oréal must test on animals in order to sell their products in Chinese department stores.
What are the advantages of using clean beauty products?
When you decide to shift to using only clean beauty products, you commit to controlling what you put on your skin. It can improve the overall health of your skin. Knowledge is power that gives you the ability to choose products that are safe both for your skin and your general health. With the continuous use of clean beauty skin care products, you can reduce your exposure to harmful ingredients, decrease chances of skin irritation, and reduce the risks of long-term damage to your general health and the environment.
But is that enough? For many years the consumers chose skin care products for the benefits on their skin, without paying attention to the harmful ingredients. Does that mean they now have to give up efficacy in favor of clean ingredients? Thankfully, the answer is no!
Clean Science®: even better than clean beauty
There are many natural beauty products that feel gentle on your skin but have little impact on your skin health or condition. While depending entirely on all natural or organic lines means (hopefully) that those are causing no harm, you may not be getting the most effective skin care products. That’s because nowadays there are many laboratory-derived, safe ingredients that are clinically tested to produce beneficial effects right down at a cellular and even DNA level. Such ingredients would be ‘banned’ from all-natural or organic brands.
Clean Science® is a concept created by Synergie Skin in Australia. Imported into the U.S. by Skin Elegance International, Synergie combines the ‘rules’ of clean beauty with the cosmeceutical science of modern-day cosmetic formulating. That means you get products that are both clean and effective. While many lines claim to be one of these two—all natural or organic lines with no laboratory ingredients, or cosmeceutical lines that contain dangerous ingredients—there are few brands that encompass both cleanness and science. Synergie Skin is such a brand.
Conscious beauty
The growth of clean beauty over the last decade has applied primarily to excluding certain ingredients and being cruelty-free. However, lately, people have started to evaluate other factors too. Are ingredients sourced sustainably and ethically? Are products contained in sustainable or recyclable packaging? Some people might say that clean beauty just applies to ingredients alone, and that the other criteria we’ve mentioned are additional. Perhaps a better description for products that adhere to more than just clean ingredients is “conscious beauty”.
At Skin Elegance we’re happy to report that Synergie has confirmed that certain ingredients whose sourcing may cause alarm have been flagged as being ethically obtained (mica, a mineral that provides shimmer to cosmetics in one such ingredient). Its containers are glass where possible, and any plastic used is BPA-free. Secondary packaging (the boxes products come in) are recyclable, and some time ago, both Synergie and Skin Elegance stopped using packing peanuts or plastic bubble wrap in its shipments. We’re proud to know that Clean Science Synergie is also conscious beauty.
Take some time and explore our range of products based on your specific skin concern, knowing you’ll get all the benefits of both clean and effective ingredients.
Sources:
- FDA: Small Businesses & Homemade Cosmetics: Fact Sheet. URL: https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/resources-industry-cosmetics/small-businesses-homemade-cosmetics-fact-sheet
- USDA National Organic Program: Cosmetics, Body Care Products, and Personal Care Products. URL: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/975753/nop_organiccosmeticsfactsheet.pdf
- Buyers should beware of organic labels on nonfood products. URL: https://theconversation.com/buyers-should-beware-of-organic-labels-on-nonfood-products-128838
- Leaping Bunny Program: Frequently Asked Questions. URL: https://www.leapingbunny.org/about/faq
- Choose Cruelty Free Accreditation. URL: https://www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au/cruelty-free-accreditation
- Green Queen. Animal Testing & China: The Road To Market For Cruelty Free Beauty Brands. URL: https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/animal-testing-china-the-road-to-market-for-cruelty-free-beauty-brands/
