“Clean beauty” is a term that has no official meaning. For some their idea of clean beauty is products free from parabens, phthalates, and various other ingredients that have fell out of favour in the past two decades. For some, clean beauty is completely natural and has no sythentic products. For others, synthetics are fine so long as they are nature-identical or have sufficient safety data. 

This lack of transparency or official term makes the world of “Clean” beauty confusing for many who are new to the concept. 

Organizations that rank skincare and products like Skinsafe, EWG, and the Yuka app have differing views on safety as well. Some of these apps have been accused of cherry-picking data or being overly cautious about studies that have not been replicated, or are only in animal populations and thus not necessarily as harmful to humans as they were to the subjects of the study. 

In my case, clean beauty also doesn’t have titanium dioxide because I’ve noticed I’m sensitive to this ingredient. There is some data that shows titanium dioxide may be unsafe but most of this is in foods, and in the EU titanium dioxide is no longer allowed in food products. Personally, I try to avoid a lot of metals including aluminum. Whether or not an individual is comfortable with an ingredient is subjective. As we wait for studies to formulate conclusive opinions, we must let our own comfort levels dictate what products we feel safe using on our skin and in our bodies. 

When brands say they are “CLEAN” there is nothing to prove that this is true, because the definition of clean is little more than a marketing gimmick. Numerous clean brands use lake dyes in their makeup, something I’ve personally never considered clean. 

For me clean beauty is about evaluating a product based on my personal needs, the ingredients, and the over-all safety. In the past I have done charts of all my skincare products to see which ingredients overlap. ChatGPT or Gemini can be useful for this as it can re-arrange all of your ingredient lists into a nice graph to see every ingredient you’re using over-all. I find this useful to see over-all exposure and figure out my comfort level with a certain product. This can also be useful if you keep a list of products that make you break out or that you didn’t like so that you can cross reference their ingredients. 

Over the past ten plus years I’ve tried to have beauty products that are as clean as possible. When I first started this journey in 2014 I was shipping in my products from Italy and France to Canada. Now, I’m still buying from Australia and random shops worldwide so this hasn’t necessarily changed. What did change was the marketing surrounding clean beauty. Suddenly every brand is “CLEAN” or “PARABEN FREE” despite looking at full ingredient lists and realizing that the product is full of other chemicals that are unnecessary, allergens, or even potential endocrine disrupters, neurotoxins, or carcinogens. Those big 3 are what I try to avoid most in products— secondary is the skin reactions I have and how well products work for me— and third is how well the formulations work in general. I have personally been more leniant on some preservatives (so long as not parabens) especially for products with a long shelf life. While a product might be “more natural,” than an another, bacteria is also natural. For me the entire point of clean beauty is feeling good about personal care for myself and my loved ones. Remember, one person’s allergies might be another person’s favourite ingredient. 

Clean beauty is beauty that you can feel good about.