Clean Beauty has a Dirty Secret…
Clean beauty brands often tout their products as a solution to a more sustainable future. However, delving into the ingredients reveals a different story.
Are these clean claims genuine or just enticing marketing strategies?
And can the beauty industry truly achieve the ideal of sustainable beauty?
Chapter 1 - The Emergence Of Clean Beauty
Why was there a need for clean beauty?
Clean Beauty has been booming in the recent years, fueled by a lack of trust in cosmetic companies, particularly in the USA where regulatory authority has been very limited.
The industry's self-regulation through the trade Association Personal Care Products Council funded by the cosmetics industry has been perceived by many as a conflict of interest.
Companies have broken Consumer Trust in the past…
Cases like the WEN lawsuit, the EOS lipbalm lawsuit and the L'Oreal Hair Relaxer Lawsuit added more fuel to the fire.
Of course, it is not companies or the industries intentions to poison consumers or cause environmental harm. However, it could be that some unsafe ingredients still fly under the radar because as long as there is no definitive link between a chemical and an adverse health and environmental effect, companies may keep selling products sacrificing long-term sustainability for short-term reward. It’s an age old story….
For example, it’s not the industry that decided to remove microbeads from formulations, it’s because of immense pressure from consumers and eventually government legislation that it happened in 2015.
For more of an insight in the american regulatory landscape I highly recommend watching the movie Dark Waters which tells the chilling true story of a lawyer who goes against a powerful chemical company for polluting water sources and endangering public health caused by this chemical called PFOA which is basically Teflon.
It’s an extreme example but it just shows that companies are not always irreproachable when it comes to handling chemicals responsibly
Are cosmetic regulations really better in Europe?
Although there is more regulation in EU, there are still some major improvements that need to be made.
One of the shortcomings of ECHA, the regulatory agency of the EU for Chemicals (Short for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals ) is that it does not have enough overview of chemicals and their potential hazards. For example, out of 200,000 polymers (for example, different kinds of plastics) on the market - 30,000 still require registration to assess their safety.
ECHA recognised this shortcoming and proposed a revision of REACH which was delayed from 2022 to who knows when, and doesn't seem to be a priority for them now so maybe we can’t count exclusively on them for chemical safety….
Chapter 2 - The Problem Of Clean Beauty
With this lack of trust brewing among consumers, Clean Beauty gained popularity in 2010’s with the launches of brands like Drunk Elephant in 2013 and Tata Harper in 2015.
Clean Beauty = Green Beauty?
But here is a question for you: What do you think of when you hear ‘‘Clean beauty?’’
Clean Beauty invokes a notion of health & safety sure but does it mean it’s clean for the environment? And if so, what are the criteria to qualify as ‘’good for environment?’’
According to consumer data, the clean beauty shopper identifies as environmentally friendly first and foremost, even before health conscious according to this poll.
So it is safe to assume that clean beauty has become synonymous with green beauty, at least in the eyes of the shopper, as consumers look more for responsibly sourced ingredients and eco-friendly packaging when making their choice.
Not all, but many clean beauty brands harness this eco-opportunism in their marketing using words like ‘‘responsible sourcing’’ and ‘‘commitment to planet.’’
The problem is, none of these terms are regulated at all so each company comes up with their own definition that suits them best. It is very subjective and is often not based on solid data but more on the latest buzzwords and villain ingredients of the moment (like Sulfates, Parabens etc…)
Clean Beauty has some questionable ingredients in them…
When looking at what these products did have in them and I was disappointed to discover a few of them contained ingredients that would go against the ethos of environmentally conscious consumers such as petrochemicals or ingredients that are not readily degradable.
Petrochemicals are used in millions of products including cosmetic products like shampoos, moisturisers and even toners and this sector is growing.
The beauty industry is obviously a smaller part of this demand but it’s not insignificant either.
As our goal is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, continuing to source from fossil fuels is not really in line with these objectives. Sure we still have 26 years to turn this boat around but why even wait this long?
Another issue I mentioned with regards to clean beauty is the use of ingredients where biodegradability and long-term environmental impacts are not clear. Ingredients like Carbomer, Acrylates, Polyethylene and Silicones are not readily degradable and with the exception of silicone, the first 3 I mentioned are actually be considered nanoplastics.
When we use products they wash down the drain, go to wastewater treatment but not all chemicals can be broken down, so they get released back into the environment either in form of sludge or effluent water . The non-biodegradable material therefore ends up either in our waters or lands and take a while to break down in the environment if at all.
When chemicals don’t break down in readily nature but continue to be released, their concentration in the environment increases and they become persistent and make it’s way up the food chain.
When I tried looking at degradability data on some of these ingredients, I couldn’t find much assurance from manufacturers. Without assurance of the brands and chemical ingredients manufacturer how should we know? Several recent studies (1, 2, 3) have actually highlighted the fact that the effects of these nanoplastics on the environment are not well known because we lack the tools to study them. Some chemicals show a negative impact on some species which are the base of the food chain while others did not. What these researchers all agreed on was that more digging was necessary.
Who knows, maybe these chemicals are not a threat after all. But shouldn’t we first study these ingredients properly before releasing them in the environment and finding out too late that they do cause harm?
It was like in the 1990s when we added microbeads to beauty products without a worry in the world.Well fast forward 25 years later we now know that microplastics are a ubiquitous in the environment, disturb the ecosystem and are pain to get rid of.
Chapter 3 - Is There A Better Solution to Clean Beauty?
For me, clean beauty should mean:
Products and ingredients are safe to use on the skin when used in the appropriate amount and
do not pose a thread to the environment in the long-term.
And as you can imagine, it is very difficult research this yourself to figure it out for each individual ingredient.
This is why I rely on the framework of certification bodies like the COSMetic Organic and natural Standard short for COSMOS to filter out ingredients and products. Maybe you have seen these before in one form or another (Ecocert, Cosmébio, Soil Association…) and recently these joined forces to create a unified global standard called COSMOS.
These are on product labels all over the world and not only certify products but also cosmetic ingredients based on principles like:
Environmentally Friendly Production and Processing
Prohibition of GMOs, petrochemical based ingredients, Nano-materials and non-certified palm oil.
If a nature derived ingredient is also partly derived from petrochemicals (and I can count them on one hand), the petrochemical part must not exceed 2% of the total formulation.
Ingredients must be biodegradable and non-persistent in the environment.
There are two types of COSMOS certifications. Natural and Organic. If the product is to be labeled Organic then at least 95% of the physically processed agro-ingredients must be organic.
Companies must also have a recycling plan, use approved materials for cleaning and must demonstrate sustainable packaging.
As you can see the standards of COSMOS go way further than the status quo and have more detailed and tangible standards than vague terms like ‘’clean’’.
Chapter 4 - Even this solution is not perfect…yet.
The Problem with Certifications
But having said all that, even this solution is not perfect. Just because an ingredient is approved by these certification bodies it does not mean it is the best most sustainable product there can be.
For example, essential oils are allowed due to their pure natural origins but they are extremely resource intensive ingredient, demanding a lot of land, energy and water use for very little output.
It is also important to check for emissions, water usage and overall ecological footprint of ingredients and products rather than making blanket statements of natural = good. This is something the certifications are not really considering yet.
Green Chemistry is what we should strive for
When I began learning about formulating, I discovered the concept of Green Chemistry and fell in love with it and the COSMOS Certification comes closest to this ideal. Green Chemistry goes beyond green marketing and poses specific questions about how chemicals are being produced.
Squalane derived from yeast fermentation instead of shark liver, Coco Glucoside derived from plants instead of petrochemicals and using enzymes instead of harsh chemicals to perform chemical reactions are all examples of green chemistry. It encompasses also novel manufacturing methods like white, green or blue biotechnology.
It’s great that, as consumers, we have learned to be more critical of what goes in beauty products. Clean beauty has really hit the beauty industry by storm and I really believe for the better mostly. But we must not stop there and keep progressing to produce safer and cleaner chemicals.
Imagine a world in which instead of disturbing the natural resources we could manufacture ingredients around the corner in a lab.
In addition to that, I think we can’t go wrong with more transparency to push the industry forward even from those certifications and I hope we can move away from this black and white thinking of either team natural or team mainstream and learn to ask deeper questions about how ingredients are collected, processed and formulated with.
You’re a real trooper if you read this article until the end!