If suddenly failing eyesight can be considered on-trend (readers are the new it-accessory, have you noticed?), I'm super-chic lately. I've accumulated a small mountain of reading glasses (tortoiseshell, matte grey, etc.), which I have become attached to for many reasons, not least because they make it so I can read things, like what I am typing right now, for example. I only wish I could wear them in the shower — I think about this — so I could also read the very small print on the labels and ingredient lists of the products I use daily, to figure out what is — and is not — inside.
That's where we are in beauty right now. What's in our products? How were they made? Who do we trust? What can we believe? What's marketing, and what's legit? What is the law? (Spoiler alert: there basically is no law.) Most importantly, what are the implications for our health? And what does this mean for the beauty business at large?
The safe/wholesome/healthy beauty movement started with the liberal use of the word "organic," a term that sounded great but was never a very good fit for personal care since it is first and foremost a food certification. (It is also exceedingly difficult for beauty products to be 100 percent certified organic, since almost anything that contains water is precluded.)
Organic as a category descriptor soon gave way to another spate of earthy, marketable, self-styled labels: "green", "botanical", "natural", "eco", "pure." They conveyed grounded, ethical, farm-to-dressing table values. They paint a nice picture and inspire confidence, but what they actually mean is not always clear. As the category continued to evolve, "natural" came out ahead as the broad label that identified the space.
But "natural" is problematic for its own reasons, most notably that there are no official regulations ensuring a product is actually natural, and even if something is formulated with (some, or mostly) natural ingredients, there is the question of what else is in there? (A product could contain one-zillionth-percent of a botanical extract — along with a host of who-knows-what-else — and thus present itself as "botanical." Think of fruit juice that contains 5 percent actual fruit.) What's more, just because an ingredient is indeed 100 percent "natural" does not necessarily make it safe (see: lead, mercury). And finally, not all synthetic ingredients are unsafe.
Which brings us to "clean." "Clean" is the new "natural." It's not a regulated classification; there is no official certification. It means slightly different things to different people, but the essential criteria are understood: "Clean means it does not contain ingredients that have been demonstrably linked to harmful health effects," says Blair Lawson, head merchant at Goop.
Gregg Renfrew, founder and chief executive of Beautycounter, adopted the term back in 2011 when she launched her beauty range and e-commerce site. "We are focused on safety versus source, and safe ingredients can be natural or man-made," she says. Renfrew wanted to poise her brand for commercial — as opposed to niche — success, positioning it with a straightforward message aimed not just at "tree huggers," but, "a mainstream person who wanted high-performance products safe for their health."
Today, the "clean" banner is carried by a small (for now) but vocal group of individual brands, dedicated retailers, platforms and activists that have taken it upon themselves to define and uphold the strict guidelines around clean products, from personal care and cosmetics to household cleaning items. They have taken it upon themselves because the beauty industry in the United States is virtually unregulated. In Europe, 1,500 substances are banned from personal care products. In the United States, that number is 30.
"The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act, which is one-and-a-half-pages long and has not been updated since 1938, allows you to put anything you want in a formulation," says Renfrew. "Consumers assume the FDA has the power to protect them, which it doesn't, and that cosmetic products are labelled in the same way as food products, which is not the case. The FDA doesn't have the power to recall products. They do research and they can suggest; they cannot enforce."
Clean-focused brands and retailers like Goop, Follain, Beautycounter and Credo blend commerce with content, providing education on ingredients and health concerns, and publishing lists detailing the substances and chemicals one will never find in the products they make and sell. Top offenders include hormone and endocrine disruptors (parabens, phthalates, chemical sunscreens like avobenzone and oxybenzone), suspected and known carcinogens (certain preservatives, formaldehyde releasers), and "fragrance," the most opaque "ingredient" of all, since it is basically a blanket term under which companies can hide any other ingredients they wish, without ever disclosing what they are (in the US this is perfectly legal).
Consumers are all ears. They've noticed. They care. They are demonstrating with their purchase power. Goop, which kicked off its e-commerce platform with fashion, started selling beauty — clean beauty, specifically — two years ago. "Now, it's 35 to 40 percent of our business each month," says Lawson.
Renfrew describes her company's growth as "explosive since the day we launched. We've been growing about 200 percent each year." Market sources estimate that the line will hit $225 million in retail revenue in 2017.
Beautycounter entered the market with 11 products six years ago, and now offers close to 130. Their latest introduction, Countermatch, a moisturiser based on bio-mimicry, sold out of 25,000 units in 12 hours when it dropped earlier this month. "We can sell a lot of product quickly," says Renfrew. Of the category at large, she says, "We know for a fact that our segment is outperforming traditional brands. And it's not slowing down at all."
As Tara Foley, founder and chief executive of Follain, the clean beauty retailer backed by venture-builder Launch, points out, "The global beauty industry [mass and prestige] is growing at around 3.8 percent, but the natural segment is growing faster, at about 10 percent." According to The NPD Group, natural brands across all categories are the swiftest-growing brand type within prestige, with skincare and makeup sales within the "spa/natural/wellness" segment accounting for $2.3 billion — up 11 percent — in the 12 months ending May 2017. Larissa Jensen, NPD's beauty industry analyst, reports that in skincare, they represent a quarter of all sales; within makeup (a smaller shared category), 11 percent of all sales, and within fragrance, where natural brands represent a still-tiny segment, they make up less than 1 percent of sales, but are growing by 20 percent. They're the fastest growing and only brand type within fragrance to gain double digits, she notes.
"The interest is there," says Jensen. "Natural is not regulated, so any brand can have ‘natural' positioning, but consumers are reacting to that natural positioning. It's something they're seeking out. We're at a crossroads. The industry is very much in a flux of change."
Thus far, the indies are the ones doing most of the work and reaping the rewards.
