Over the last few years, the concept of “clean beauty” products has undergone a subtle shift. At first, it referred more to what ingredients weren’t in a given product. Today, it also covers what ingredients are in a given product. Now, savvy consumers pay careful attention to product ingredients to identify ones that are high-performing, healthy, and gentle. Here are some of the ingredients shoppers are now looking for, why they matter, and how they often help clean beauty products outperform their traditional counterparts.
Clean Beauty Gives Way to Clean Formulation
Today’s best clean beauty products aren’t just simplified formulations of existing product lines. They’re developed explicitly to rely on ingredients that support skin health, avoid irritation, and still perform as expected. To make that happen, manufacturers focus on the biocompatibility of every ingredient they use.
Biocompatibility refers to ingredients that work with or support your skin’s natural functions. Common ingredients that meet those criteria include gentle hydrators, lipids that support the skin barrier, carefully selected preservatives, and pigments that don’t provoke skin reactions. Additionally, manufacturers tend to emphasize responsible sourcing and ethical production processes for their clean makeup lines.
For their part, consumers are starting to do detailed research of their own to find real-world data to support marketing claims surrounding ingredients. That helps them to better understand why certain clean ingredients work, as well as any known downsides.
https://www.shutterstock.com/g/ORION+PRODUCTION
The Ingredients Shoppers Increasingly Look For
Although the precise compounds used for clean ingredient makeup vary widely, they do tend to fit into a handful of categories. The ones shoppers look for most often include:
Skin-Friendly Base Ingredients
Base layers are crucial both to how a makeup affects your skin as well as its durability and performance. That’s why an ever-increasing number of lightweight, non-greasy moisturizers are on the market. Among them, products including ingredients like aloe, squalane, and ceramides are especially common. All three nourish the skin without irritating it or clogging pores, making them ideal as core components of a base layer.
Natural Actives and Manufactured Duplicates
A range of naturally-derived active ingredients or identical manufactured duplicates have also become popular in the clean beauty space. For example, niacinamide, peptides, and hyaluronic acid are all staples in products designed to smooth, refine, or plump your skin’s appearance. But because they’re all biocompatible, they support long-term skin health, not only its appearance.
Mineral-Based Low Irritation Pigments
Color is an important part of a variety of makeup products. In the clean beauty space, shoppers want products with pigments that are highly stable and low-irritation. Importantly, iron oxides, a long-standing go-to pigment type, fit well with newer clean alternatives. Mica-based pigments are also becoming popular as a sustainable and healthy option.
Gentle Polymers and Film Formers
Historically, long-wear makeup products achieved their durability using harsh solvents and synthetics. Within the clean makeup space, things like polymers and film formers are taking their place. They help makeup last by increasing flexibility and smudge resistance. Importantly, they do so without irritating your skin, unlike the ingredients they often replace.
Plant-Based Oils and Emollients
Emollients help soften your skin and keep moisture in. Shoppers now look for a variety of plant-based emollients and oils. These include meadowfoam, sunflower, and jojoba oils. They help protect skin while making makeup comfortable to wear for longer periods.
Where and Why Clean Makeup Formulations Shine
There are a handful of makeup types that typically rely on harsh or heavy ingredients to achieve the necessary performance. This is especially true for eye makeup, like eyeliners and mascara. They often contain solvent-based binders, heavy waxes, and carbon black pigments. These ingredients were meant to provide all-day, smudge-free wear on a particularly delicate area of the face.
Waterproof eyeliner is a perfect example. While traditional formulations do work, they often cause discomfort and dryness. They may also be quite challenging to remove. Clean waterproof eyeliner formulations now pair stable mineral-based pigments with film formers to resist smudging and improve flexibility. That way, they naturally withstand ordinary eye movements while remaining comfortable and easy to remove when you want to.
The rise of tubing mascara also offers an excellent example of clean ingredients improving on older formulations. Traditional mascara usually relies on coating eyelashes with heavy waxes or oils. Tubing mascara, by contrast, replaces waxes and oils with lightweight polymers. These polymers form flexible tubes around each lash, providing durability while allowing easy removal. With nothing more than warm water, the polymer tubes slide right off.
The Future of Clean Beauty Ingredients
The ingredients in today’s clean makeup formulations aren’t the only part of the modern clean beauty picture. Manufacturers are also working to integrate sustainable methods into ingredient sourcing and manufacturing. That means consumers will increasingly see bioengineered botanicals replacing traditionally farmed ingredients. They’ll also see a growing use of circular and upcycled materials that reduce waste. And more beauty brands are beginning to embrace waterless and water-free formulations.
Waterless formulations allow manufacturers to deliver more potent makeup while reducing packaging and minimizing environmental impact. They also help further reduce the need for preservatives, which dovetails with the broader goals of the clean beauty movement.
Clean Beauty With No Sacrifices
The current state of the clean beauty market reflects an ongoing evolution in how consumers think about the products they use daily. Rather than trusting marketing and brand reputation, they’re digging deep into how products work before deciding to buy.
Fortunately, the industry is keeping pace by shifting to safer, sustainable ingredients without sacrificing performance. In fact, many clean ingredients outperform the traditional ingredients they’re replacing. Pair that with the enhanced sustainability measures manufacturers continue to embrace, and you get a rare win-win-win situation. Clean beauty products benefit consumers, manufacturers, and the environment. And there’s every reason to believe that clean beauty will soon become the default standard makeup brands try to follow.