8 clean beauty brands that will have you feeling pure
Illustration by Twylamae
Words by Alyce Greer
Dreamy.
I don’t like to admit this, but it can take me over an hour to get ready each morning… and that doesn’t include getting dressed or drinking my smoothie. The entire process is filled to the brim with beauty products – from scrubs in the shower to masks in my hair to makeup on my face to oils on my body.
I’m not alone either – the average woman uses around 16 beauty products every day. I’m also no math genius, but I’m pretty sure that comes to 5,840 beauty products every year. And if you’re not using clean makeup and skincare, that’s a scary amount of parabens, sulphates, preservatives and other nasty things seeping into your pores all day long.
It’s this information that has sparked a clean beauty revolution, just like the one that happened with our food. For the past couple of years, innovative beauty brands have been popping up all over the world, with recipes that promise long-lasting makeup, hydrated skin, high pigment colour and everything else that major makeup brands do – just without the bad stuff.
If you too want to feel pure and a little bit smug, here are a few popular clean beauty brands you can invite into your kit.
Drunk Elephant
This sh*t is as dreamy as it gets. You won’t find what they call the ‘Suspicious 6’ in any Drunk Elephant products – that is, essential oils, drying alcohols, silicones, chemical screens, fragrance/dyes and SLS. The range manages to avoid all of these nasties while doing its job and feeling incredible on the skin. Snaps to the Sukari Babyfacial, Lala Retro Whipped Cream and Beste No. 9 Jelly Cleanser.
RMS Beauty
You probably own the iconic RMS Beauty luminizer, or have at least seen the brand’s products flying off the shelves at Mecca… Rose-Marie Swift started RMS Beauty to reverse the impact of daily exposure to chemicals in beauty products, developing a line that is clean, ethical, and very lovely. Products are made with raw, food-grade and organic ingredients, are free from harmful chemicals and anything synthetic, and actually heal and nourish the skin as you wear them.
Herbivore Botanicals
I would literally buy this brand purely for the packaging, but it’s nice to know it’s also completely natural and non-toxic too. It all started in 2011 in Julia Wills and Alexander Kummerow’s Seattle kitchen, where they realised there was a gap for pure, highly concentrated and super effective formulas within the skincare market. The pair sources raw, natural materials like French pink clay and Brazilian gemstones to create glow potions, body polishes, clarity masks, facial oils and other magical things.
Lilah B
Lilah B blends ‘high-performance ingredients with nourishing elements from the earth and sea to create a complete collection of colour.’ It’s not joking about the colour – the lip balms and cheek stains are the pigments of my dreams. The brand’s philosophy takes the ‘less is more’ approach, so we can use fewer products, declutter, minimise and simplify, while the formulations are clean, healthy and kind to the skin. Special mention to Lilah B’s cute little stone-shaped compacts too.
Ilia
After researching the ingredients on the back of her beauty products one day, Sasha Plavsic was shocked to find her daily tinted lip balm wasn’t made with safe ingredients. While most people would just toss the balm, Sasha decided to build a beauty empire that focuses on sustainable practices and natural and organic ingredients, without compromising on staying power, payoff or pretty packaging.
Luna Bronze
There really is no excuse to be getting around in chemical-filled, tandoori-coloured fake tans in 2018. Luna Bronze is one of the best self-tanners you can get your hands on, and is up to 99 per cent certified organic, natural or naturally-derived. Products are also PETA-certified, cruelty-free and made in Australia. It’s sunless tanning meets skincare, which is pretty clever if you ask me.
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