The numbers should have been my first tell. “Clean beauty” is no cottage industry quietly decanting oils in a shed. Analysts peg the global market in the high single-digit billions and climbing fast, with forecasts more than doubling by the end of the decade. That is not fringe; that is a category. And yet for all the scale, there is still no legal definition in the UK of what “clean” means in cosmetics. No official criteria; no standardised threshold; just a mood music of “free from” and “non-toxic” that flatters the purchaser and flummoxes the scientist.
I learned this the itchy way. An anointed “natural” cleanser – all petals and promises – left me with contact dermatitis that bloomed whenever the central heating clicked on. My GP looked sympathetic and prescribed the dull salvation of a bland emollient. A consultant dermatologist later pointed out that essential oils and “natural fragrance” are just chemistry with better PR. A rose by any other name can still irritate. Around the same time, the EU quietly expanded the list of fragrance allergens that must be named on pack – not to panic consumers, but to help the already sensitised avoid their triggers. Fifty-six new allergens joined the list, with thresholds so low they read like a whisper (0.001% in leave-on products, 0.01% in rinse-off ), though there is a long transition period to let industry catch up. Three years to place compliant products; five to clear the old stock. It is prosaic, unglamorous, and reassuring (if a little slow).
'"The phrase implies that a product without certain ingredients is inherently better, which flatters our desire to do the right thing but often ignores dose, context and formulation."'
“Clean beauty” definitions, by contrast, runs on mood. One retailer’s blacklist is another’s bestseller. The phrase implies that a product without certain ingredients is inherently better, which flatters our desire to do the right thing but often ignores dose, context and formulation. UK regulators, to their credit, have tried to pierce the fog. The Competition and Markets Authority’s Green Claims Code says marketers should be “truthful, be clear, back it up.” While the Advertising Standards Authority reminds beauty brands that efficacy claims need proper evidence, not filtered selfies and enthusiastic adjectives. If you promise to reduce wrinkles, you should be able to show robust data on the actual product sold, not a cousin formulation or lab-only blend. None of this is hostile to innovation; it is hostile to the wishful thinking of brands selling snake oil.
My own wishful thinking took an odd turn with sunscreen. Buoyed by my conversion with my pal who screen grabs ingredients lists, I swapped a cosmetically elegant SPF for a “reef-friendly” mineral number that made me look like a Regency ghost and pilled under foundation. I wore it twice. The bottle sat there like a bad smell until I admitted that the best sunscreen is the one I will actually wear (and that environmental claims deserve the same scrutiny as clinical ones). The EU’s move to restrict intentionally added microplastics, including certain forms of glitter and encapsulated polymers, is a good example of specificity over vibes – dull to read, yes, but aimed at measurable harm with phased deadlines that force design change rather than Instagram penance.
'"It is the moral absolutism I have abandoned: the sense that if a product is not “free from” a long list of ingredients I cannot pronounce, it must be suspect."'
Friends ask whether I am now “anti-clean”. Hardly. The movement did what legacy beauty was too slow to do – it forced transparency into the conversation, exposed the laziness of meaningless INCI lists, and made refill and repair feel modern rather than crunchy. Some of my favourite formulas wear the “clean” label and earn it by being well-designed, tested, and pleasant to use. It is the moral absolutism I have abandoned: the sense that if a product is not “free from” a long list of ingredients I cannot pronounce, it must be suspect. The parabens panic of the last decade taught the industry a punishing lesson – remove an effective, low-irritancy preservative to appease consumer fear and you may end up with products more likely to spoil or sting. Progress looks like nuance, not slogans.
There are, of course, parts of the “clean” universe I adore. Refillable lipsticks that click into heavy metal cases with the same satisfaction as closing a well-made quiet luxury bag. A British brand that publishes the percentage of each active and links to the relevant literature instead of declaiming “miracle”. A small, slightly chaotic maker in Hackney who will adjust the oils in a balm if you tell her about your skin’s winter tantrums. But there is also the theatre – the “non-toxic” scare copy; the grim list of banned ingredients that implies everyone else is poisoning you; the performative recycling claims that do little more than outsource responsibility to the kerb. When a brand spends more time telling me what it is not than what it does, I suspect the formula is an afterthought.
Professionally, the shift has changed how I brief. I ask for proof rather than purity and for plain English rather than poems. If a brand says a peptide smooths, I ask how the study was designed and on what concentration; if a moisturiser promises barrier repair, I ask whether they measured transepidermal water loss or are simply in love with oat milk as a concept. None of this is joyless. On the contrary, it restores the pleasure of beauty to the place it belongs – the quiet, daily business of feeling more yourself – rather than as a referendum on one’s righteousness.
At home the routine is smaller and more expensive in that suspiciously rational way good routines are. A non-foaming cleanser that respects cold mornings. A urea-rich moisturiser that would never win a popularity contest on TikTok. A sunscreen I wear happily under make-up. Occasional retinoid, occasional azelaic acid, the odd skin booster when winter insists. I have kept a few “clean” favourites because they earn their shelf space, not because the bottle makes me feel pious. And when my neck hints at mischief, I remember the dermatologist’s advice and the EU’s footnotes, and I choose function over fragrance.
In the end, the cost of “clean” was not the rash, or the overpriced botanical that had to be smuggled into the bin like a failed sourdough starter, but the distraction. Beauty is supposed to be intimate and efficient; a reliable edit of things that help. The rest is presentation. So I buy less and read more. I look for regulators doing their unflashy work on allergens and microplastics, and for marketers who can talk like adults about evidence and impact. The industry will keep selling purity because purity sells. I will keep buying clarity because clarity works. Luxury, to me, is not the absence of a molecule – it is knowledge and the presence of proof.
