One thing the beauty sector loves is a good trend and few have seen such rapid growth over the past few years than clean beauty and the shift to a more sustainable beauty world. But when does a trend become an important part of everyday life? With ever increasing focus on being kinder to the environment, electric cars & sustainability, we find ourselves in a place where the market is becoming more saturated with eco products as well as ingredients that are good for the environment but good for the consumer also.
In fact, with ‘sustainability’ becoming more of a hygiene factor than point of difference for beauty brands, it is becoming harder than ever for consumers to navigate this space – one where almost all brands are keen to play up their green credentials. A
survey by Mintel revealed 53% of UK shoppers have bought an eco-friendly beauty/grooming product in the last 12 months.
So, what exactly is clean beauty, can your brand authentically talk up its sustainable credentials and has the cost-of-living crisis shifted consumer priorities away from eco-conscious and back towards price-conscious?
In this blog, we delve into the flourishing clean beauty movement, highlighting the shift towards non-toxic skincare products and the reasons behind this evolution, explore how consumers are responding to clean beauty during a cost-of-living crisis and ask if many are truly embracing these products for their perceived health benefits and environmental impact methods or simply to just jump on the ‘trendy bandwagon’?
So, what is clean beauty & what ARE its benefits?
At its simplest, clean beauty refers to products that are made without the use of harmful ingredients. These products focus on transparency, safety for the consumer and the environment as well as sustainability. Clean beauty products exclude ingredients such as parabens, sulftes, phthalayes and synthetic fragrances which are widely known to cause irritation or long-term health concerns. Instead, products focus on organic and natural ingredients that are kinder to the skin and environment.
It been known that switching to cleaner beauty offers several benefits for the consumer. Not only can it help reduce your exposure to harmful chemicals that disrupt your hormones and the skin itself, but it’s also helps to elevate irritation, redness and skin sensitivity due to using natural ingredients that work with your skin as opposed to against it which results in kinder, softer skin.
The Rise Of The Clean Beauty Movement
Clean beauty really started to gather pace sometime between the 2010-2020s (although the original clean beauty conversation sparked back in the 1990s), and since then has been on an upwards trend. What’s behind this growth? The demand for sustainable products is particularly down to social media with the topic #cleanbeauty having over 2.1 billion views on TikTok and 6.3 billion tags on Instagram as of October 2023! Another shift towards the clean beauty movement is consumer awareness i.e. health and safety. Many do not want to expose themselves to products that are dangerous so therefore, want to use products that are healthy for them but also healthy for the planet. With social campaigns involving protecting the planet, more and more people have realised that we need to look after our planet, and this can start from skincare! We have also seen that with a cost-of-living crisis, more people are embracing their natural skin as they may not want to spend money on makeup but instead, focus on skin health.
And as recently as this year, we have seen a rise in the ‘skinimalism’ trend – the celebration of natural beauty with a minimalistic approach to skincare and makeup. Such celebrities like Alicia Keys and Pamela Anderson have really supported this movement which has provoked attention from both media and social media. Skinimalism is about simplifying your beauty routine and embracing natural skin texture, aka letting the skin shine through. In the world of Facetune and Photoshop, unrealistic expectations have flooded the internet. Skinimalism focuses on normalizing skin texture, pores, wrinkles, freckles, and pimples.