Are Clean Beauty Brands Green Beauty Brands?

If you’re reading this article while running late for work or procrastinating washing the dishes, I’ll spare you ten minutes of scattered pontificating to let you in on the short answer: no, they’re not. But that’s not to say that there isn’t an interesting relationship between these two often overlapping movements that have come to characterize progressive beauty trends in the past few years.

Clean Beauty and Green Beauty are, at the heart of things, separate categories with separate goals. Though both indeed suggest some level of ethical and environmental awareness, nuances in defining either immediately reveal some pretty major differences.

Clean Beauty focuses first and foremost on ingredient safety for human use. A clean beauty brand should, at minimum, avoid the most harmful common ingredients. Here, I’m talking about parabens, phthalates, sulfates, synthetic fragrances, etc.. This movement was born out of growing concerns about toxic exposure. According to an abundance of studies and the Environmental Working Group (EWG), many chemicals commonly found in cosmetics and personal care products have links to hormone disruption, allergies, and carcinogenic effects.

It’s an innocent assumption to figure that what’s harmful to us probably isn’t too great for the planet either, and generally, that’s true. The problem is that the reverse isn’t always the case: Ingredients that are perfectly safe (and even beneficial) for us are often unsafe for the environment. Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide are perfect examples of this. These clean beauty go-to's are certainly less likely to harm human skin than their chemical UV filter alternatives, but nevertheless, they entail high ecological costs. They tend to accumulate in aquatic ecosystems and disrupt marine life. So, yes, it’s quite common for clean beauty’s well-meaning pursuit of non-toxic formulations to totally sidestep the question of whether its products harm the environment.

Perhaps the most glaring example I could provide is palm oil, which (if not RSPO certified especially) is absolutely terrible for the planet. Unsustainable palm oil derivative production contributes to deforestation, habitat loss for endangered species, and a jaw-dropping carbon emission level. Even the use of polylactic acid, proudly touted as a compostable alternative to traditional plastic packaging, often ignores factors like industrial corn farming and water consumption required for its production. That’s not to say we prefer traditional, non-biodegradable plastic, but rather just to drive home my point that sustainability is complicated and what’s better for us isn’t necessarily great for the planet.

At the same time, many ingredients harmful to humans also pose major risks to the environment. Parabens have been found to bioaccumulate in marine organisms and disrupt the reproductive systems of fish. Similarly, oxybenzone, a typical chemical UV filter for sunscreens, irritates our skin and contributes to coral bleaching. This kind of overlap does mean that there are ingredients we must eliminate for both, but the lack of alignment when it comes to others suggests, rather, that there’s a lot that separates clean beauty from green beauty.

If you’ve noticed through my examples up to this point that most of the time, green beauty requires eliminating everything clean beauty does and more, fantastic, you’re doing great. Because I think the most important takeaway from this comparison is that green beauty does mean clean beauty a lot more than the other way around. Green Beauty’s focus on environmentally sustainable practices almost always necessitates creating formulations that are non-toxic for humans as well. The elimination of petrochemical derivatives and synthetic fragrances in green beauty aligns naturally, no pun intended, with clean beauty’s goals.

Consider biodegradable surfactants derived from coconut oil, which are quite common in green beauty. These ingredients are far safer for waterways and less likely to irritate human skin than those dreaded sulfates. Similarly, emphasis on organic farming practices in green beauty reduces pesticide residue, which, once again, aligns with clean beauty priorities. Honestly, the list goes on and on. I think the only real exceptions come into play when discussing biodegradable and eco-friendly ingredients, like essential oils, that can still cause skin irritation or allergies.

With all that in mind, I think we can safely say that a meaningful beauty industry shift requires integrating clean and green principles into a cohesive framework. This is something we at Shifting Gaia emphasize a lot when evaluating brands for our directory. All brands are scored for both the sustainability of their ingredients and their non-toxic nature concerning human use and consumption. What we’ve found time and time again is that the brands that truly prioritize sustainability end up creating non-toxic products almost as a by-product of their efforts. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of brands that orient themselves solely around a clean beauty ethos.

Greenwashing in the clean beauty world is a real problem. Some 38% of all green claims in consumer goods are exaggerated or unsubstantiated, a statistic that certainly carries into the beauty world, where some 120 billion packaging units are generated annually. The best clean makeup brands are not exempt from scrutiny, particularly if their formulations or packaging do not meet the same environmental standards upheld by green makeup brands. To put it bluntly, brands need to be both clean and green. The illusions of abundance and disposability pervade the beauty industry and mirror broader consumer habits of overconsumption. It’s high time we marry our personal health to the health of the biosphere that sustains us.

Consumers hold the power to drive this change by demanding more from brands. Asking questions about sourcing, production, and end-of-life impact forces the industry to evolve. The answer to whether clean beauty brands are green beauty brands depends on the willingness of both consumers and companies to transcend marketing jargon and engage with the complexities of sustainability. Natural makeup brands that commit to these principles, integrating clean beauty’s ethos of safety with green beauty’s environmental focus, represent the future of eco-friendly cosmetics.

This is precisely why we began our Directory project and decided to research, evaluate, and provide our community with in-depth brand sustainability analyses. While clean beauty has well-meaning intentions, and we applaud the movement for demanding more in a world where companies treat consumers’ health with total disregard, we need to push the envelope further to respect the fundamental connection between our bodies and the natural world we ultimately belong to.