Clean beauty is the new craze and within the last couple of months, there has been a tremendous increase in clean beauty brands. Consumers are beginning to incorporate more clean products into their everyday makeup or skincare routine.
What Does it Mean to be Clean?
To put it into simple terms, clean beauty means that the products created are non-toxic and safe to put onto your body. Clean beauty brands are entirely transparent about the ingredients that they put into their products. Many clean beauty brands aim to be natural, sustainable, and cruelty-free.
People tend to get wrapped up in the idea that clean beauty means “organic” or “natural.” While that may be true, clean beauty is really about eliminating the toxic chemicals within our daily products. Clean beauty is about making consumers aware of what they are putting on their bodies and how it can impact their health and well being. As consumers, we must acknowledge and pay attention to the ingredients within the products we purchase.
Clean Beauty Misconceptions
There are many misconceptions that people have when it comes to clean beauty. For example, clean beauty doesn’t HAVE to be organic, natural, or green.
In consumers’ minds, we tend to interchange the word clean and organic—people associate organic with being healthy, which generally is the case. However, clean beauty DOES NOT have to be organic. Some clean beauty brands or products can be organic, but they do not all have to be. With that being said, it is required that clean beauty is made with SAFE ingredients.
In addition to organic beauty, people assume that clean beauty has to be natural. We all have the idea that natural products don’t always work. For example, natural deodorant. I know I am not the only one who has tried almost every natural deodorant to find the right one that actually works. After only 20 minutes of wearing a natural deodorant, I begin to smell fresh flowers with undertones of BO. To clear some things up, natural products are safe to put on your body and are made without preservatives and toxins, but that doesn’t mean that clean beauty has to be natural.
Finally, clean beauty does not have to be green beauty either. Green beauty tends to be associated with being vegan, cruelty-free, sustainable, eco-friendly, etc. Now all of these characteristics are great to have in a beauty product, but that doesn’t mean that it is necessarily “clean.” So, clean beauty does not need to be “green” necessarily. Clean beauty can be organic, natural, or green, but just because it can fall into one of the three categories doesn’t mean that it is “clean beauty.”
A Clean Beauty Recap
If you are unfamiliar with beauty or skincare in general, hop on the clean beauty bandwagon! If you have a mini panic attack and think, ‘oh my god, I need to go and repurchase all new and clean beauty products,’ slow down. You may have some clean products in your bathroom or on the shelf that you didn’t even realize were clean. In addition, it’s okay to have some products that aren’t clean. This article aims to bring awareness to clean beauty and explain what clean beauty is vs. what it isn’t. There tends to be a lot of misinformation regarding clean beauty, and sometimes companies don’t disclose all the information on the packaging of the products. Moving forward, consumers need to take the extra time to dig deeper into what products they are buying, the ingredients within the products and gain a better understanding of clean beauty before jumping the gun.
Cover Photo: Melissa Herwitt/E! Illustration
