According to research in 2021, 70% of Americans would like to use vegan makeup and nearly 35% of Americans are searching for clean beauty products.
It seems to us that there’s a lot of natural overlap between these two groups and that’s why we’ve put together this guide to clean beauty products for vegans.
Types Of Clean Beauty Products For Vegans
Clean beauty products are those made without any ingredients that are suspected to have an impact on human health.
Those ingredients should, in theory, also be clearly labelled on the product.
This is good news as many vegan beauty products are designed from a similar starting point.
A vegan beauty product, however, is defined as containing no animal products nor products made from animal labor.
So, for example, our lists of cruelty-free makeup brands and clean makeup brands contain many vegan AND clean brands.
All beauty products can be clean and vegan, in fact, and we suspect that more and more brands will be seeking to establish their products in these niches as consumers clearly want them.
Some Brands Stand Out
Many brands are looking to highlight their commitment to deliver clean, vegan products in all areas of your self-care routine.
Pacifica, for example, has been very outspoken about their focus on vegans as well as being a clean beauty company.
However, it’s very important to realize that most brands do not have a complete catalogue of products, for now, that ticks both the “clean” and the “vegan” boxes.
This means that as a consumer, you’ll need to monitor what’s going into your beauty products and make informed choices as to whether they meet your needs.
And to do this, you need to be aware of the challenges that you will face when investigating the “clean” nature of products.
Challenges For Clean Beauty Products For Vegans
It’s not all good news, however.
There are some big challenges facing every consumer of clean beauty products for vegans and these include:
- Little to no regulation of the industry. The FDA doesn’t approve beauty products (in fact, it barely regulates them, either) and while the EU does, even there the regulations aren’t very strict. This makes it hard to have confidence in products.
- Safety is reliant on the ethics of the manufacturer. In theory, every time that a consumer has a bad reaction to a beauty product, the manufacturer should report it to the FDA voluntarily. However, even if the manufacturer does the ethical thing, the FDA cannot force a recall or to get the manufacturer to change their ingredients.
- The lack of standardized labeling in the industry. With no regulation, there’s nothing to compel a manufacturer to label their clean beauty products accurately. A product that says “fragrance” might contain up to 300 unlisted ingredients as part of that “fragrance”, by contrast a product that says “unscented” might still contain fragrance. And this means labels such as “clean”, “natural”, “organic”, etc. don’t tell the consumer anything of value – you really have to dig to discover what’s real and what’s not.
These challenges mean that you want to select clean beauty products, as a vegan, very carefully, indeed. Look for brands that are truly transparent and which make it easy for you to tell what their ingredients are.
The Future Of Clean Beauty Products For Vegans
We don’t have a crystal ball, so we can’t offer insight into clean beauty 20 years from now but we can identify some emerging trends in clean beauty products for vegans, right now.
- Skincare becomes the priority. Clean beauty will focus on less consumption and more on the things that are essential for your health and looks. That means taking care of your skin. Self-care product sales began booming during the pandemic and it seems unlikely that it will slow down any time soon. You can learn more about common natural skincare ingredients here.
- Recyclable packaging and containers. You can hardly call your beauty regime “clean” if the packages it comes in end up in a landfill. The industry is going to look to create zero waste and, in particular, to put an end to disposable containers. Credo has already released guidelines for all its brand partners and we expect other brands to follow. In fact, these brands already are.
- Further integration of technology. There will be a growing range of apps and websites designed to help you better care for yourself and which focus on higher quality, cleaner products to do it with. One example of this is Mary Kay’s Skin Analyzer which means no need for a store visit to determine your skin type.
- Transparency of sourcing. Consumers are starting to demand oversight of where their suppliers spend their money. It’s not enough for your products to be clean, they want to see ethical sourcing too. Their values require that people be treated as well as the planet.
- Eye products are going to be huge. In 2020 and 2021, masks have made it impossible to see the whole of someone’s face. This has led to huge experimentation in eye makeup and we think that as the masks come off, people are going to want to highlight their new skills.
Clean beauty products for vegans are a natural winning combination. Most vegans brands are clean (or striving to be) and most clean brands have large ranges of vegan options even if they are not 100% vegan. The future is bright for clean beauty products for vegans though it’s not without its challenges and we’d really like to see better labeling practices at a minimum.
These products are going to be good for the planet and good for the user and you can’t ask for more than that.