Anna Dycheva-Smirnova, executive director of Reed Exhibitions, organizer of the InterCHARM beauty exhibition, answers the question of the worried public: what kind of clean beauty category is it and what exactly will it save us from?
Clean beauty is a phenomenal story. Nowhere, in no country in the world is there such a legislatively enshrined concept or at least some officially recommended regulation. Each brand interprets it as it feels right (and, yes, how it sells better). Reminds of the orgy that was happening in the minds of buyers at the time of the birth of natural and organic cosmetics, until these concepts were fixed in cosmetic regulations and were not properly explained in all reputable media. All this is yet to be done for the concept of clean beauty. If you're lucky.
The trend appeared in the US as an alignment with (attention, now there will be a paradox) European standards and restrictions in relation to cosmetic formulations, voiced in the EU Regulation "On the safety of cosmetic products." In short: it contains (and is constantly updated!) Requirements for the composition of all beauty products. And the duty of any manufacturer is prescribed in a detailed way to voice the compositions and observe uniformity in the names of ingredients - commendable, from the point of view of an anxious consumer, vigilance. For a dozen (or a little more) years, a colossal difference has formed in the history of control over formulations: relatively speaking, while in the United States, ingredients were limited to dozens of use, in Europe they were deleted by hundreds. This received widespread media coverage, and the public could not help but react. Everyone wanted to eliminate the risk of "wrong" cosmetics from their lives.
And brands have taken this story - honestly or creatively - by claiming to be clean. How is this possible, you ask?
For example: clean products do not contain in the recipe some ingredients that are not really to blame for anything: they are legal, but they cause suspicion in some groups of people simply because of bad PR. Then the brand declares an increased sensitivity to this unspoken request and points to its products: [any unwanted ingredient] free. Even if he was not supposed to be there!
Or: a brand puts “safe” or “non-toxic” labels on its packaging. The consumer thinks in horror that, therefore, if there is no such labeling, then the product is necessarily dangerous and toxic. And he forgets a simple, elementary thing: there simply cannot be anything in the official sale that is NOT officially allowed. Beauty is an industry burdened to the limit with restrictions and control. What cannot be used will not be missed either at the stage of filing a patent, or at the stage of registration of a cosmetic product, or at the stage of export-import. And so on, and so on. It just won't make it into the normal sales channel.
There are, of course, logical parameters - although they are also tacit due to the lack of a legislative clean-base, the global market already provides them as an idea. According to this idea, transparency remains a mandatory attribute of the category (the manufacturer is obliged to keep the complete list of ingredients in the public domain) and that the products do not contain paraffins, triclosan, octinoxate, oxybenzone, DEA, phthalates, SLS, formaldehyde, PEG, BHA. Once again: all these guys are legal, they are just unpopular, and manufacturers find ways to do without their services. The fact is, this is actually very important to the consumer: people who want or objectively need to eliminate this or that ingredient should be able to do so. For whatever reason. Transparency is the best answer to anxiety. This is respect for the consumer. And it's good that the market has such a polyphony that gives everyone the opportunity to make their choice. Only, please, conscious: the result of a careful and comprehensive study of information, and not blind confidence in one statement.
What else? You need to understand that the concept of clean is not identical to natural cosmetics, since products may contain synthetic ingredients. However, more often than not, clean is environmentally friendly cosmetics, produced with care for nature at all stages (purchasing of reproducible raw materials, sensible attitude to water, cleaning waste and saving energy during production, recyclable packaging) and not tested on animals. Yes, cruelty free for clean is, in my (and global) opinion, immutable.
Well, let's be honest: there is no equal sign between clean and the degree of efficiency. Different products may have different effectiveness - compared to other categories, depending on the individual parameters of the consumer, and so on. Clean is a response to anxiety and a desire to avoid certain ingredients. There are lists of them on websites or in mobile applications - usually labeled "alarming ingredients."
There are resources that can help you look at brands from all angles: the Russian EcoAngel app, English-speaking Thinkdirty, CosmEthics, EWG Healthy Living, DetoxMe.
More specifically, on the worry: social shopping platform Influenster and consumer shopping network Bazaarvoice jointly asked 24,000 women around the world in the spring of 2020 about what they are looking for in “clean” beauty products. We learned that two-thirds of the customers want more transparency, no, not formulations, but just about what kind of labeling is this - clean. Cruelty free is understandable (well, at least 63 percent of the respondents). “Hypoallergenic” is pleasant (for those 36 percent who are not aware that this word is devoid of meaning and guarantees that there will be no possible individual reaction). A clean Although as a result, 93 percent admitted that they would rather choose the one marked clean out of two similar products.
(Taking this opportunity, let me remind you that you definitely DO NOT need to choose - and that, undoubtedly, just poses a real danger: these are cosmetics of any category, but with unobservable expiration dates or storage rules. This is a warning from me personally: refuse categorically from such a beauty habit How to store products for longer than the prescribed period. Remember when you opened a jar of cream or mascara, and count down the period indicated by the manufacturer. Delay is what is really dangerous and toxic. But these are not innocent, however, I will not repeat myself).
In conclusion, a story from business life. One very famous beauty-buyer, every time he hears “clean”, sarcastically asks: “What did you say? Trendy? "]>
