Honesty Hour: Our Official Brand Stance on Clean Beauty 🌎
“Clean” is an ultra-popular marketing term that’s being tossed around the beauty space now more than ever before. In fact, it even has its own national holiday just like lipstick. For reasons unbeknownst to us, July 15 has been coined “Clean Beauty Day,” which basically just goes to show how mainstream the movement’s become in our society. But here’s the problem: Because it’s a completely unregulated label, literally any brand can claim their products are “clean,” even if that’s not the case at all. (Pretty alarming, no?) Ultimately, this makes everything more confusing for consumers because it can be hard to know who and what to trust. That’s why we believe it’s 100% on brands to not only clearly state their personal definition of “clean,” but to also be fully transparent and have proof ready for people should they inquire about it. And trust us, they do. It's 2021 — and folks want receipts.
With that said, as a brand that falls under the clean beauty sector, we think it’s super important to be open and honest about what “clean” really means to us. Sure, we already have an entire page dedicated to the topic, but with Clean Beauty Day approaching, we thought why not touch on it a bit more? Keep scrolling for our official stance, courtesy of Youthforia’s founder, Fiona Co Chan.
Putting skin health + the planet first.
“For us, our highest priority is skin health and choosing skin-friendly ingredients,” says Chan very matter-of-factly. “I started Youthforia because I wanted makeup that was good for your skin, but in addition, we also prioritize following Green Chemistry principles and choose to formulate without fossil fuels as much as we can.” For anyone unfamiliar, Green Chemistry principles are simply a set of guidelines designed to help brands formulate in a way that leaves less of a negative impact on the environment. There are 12 core “rules,” if you will, and one of them is to formulate sans fossil fuels whenever possible. This includes ingredients like parabens and phthalates — both of which are made from fossil fuels.
No shade to chemicals.
One major aspect that makes us different in the clean beauty space is the fact that we don’t disparage all synthetic chemicals. “As a brand owner, my approach is not to demonize chemicals or synthetics but to be very transparent in our formulation philosophy and to explain why we choose the ingredients we use,” says Chan. “I actually think synthetics are really important for achieving nice textures and colors in makeup, but we go out of our way to source plant-based options because it’s better for the planet and our skin.”
An example for you: Butylene glycol is a multifunctional ingredient that's found in countless cosmetics, and it's typically derived from fossil fuels. We source ours from plants instead.
Transparency = everything.
Now about that proof we mentioned earlier. Because we understand that greenwashing (i.e. the act of lying about being eco-friendly) is a huge industry-wide issue, we went ahead and had our products certified by the USDA BioPreferred program, which tells you the exact percentage of fossil fuels that’s in a formula. For instance, our Dewy Glosses are 100% biobased, meaning they contain 0% fossil fuels.
On top of being better for the planet, fossil fuel-free ingredients are typically kinder to the skin, too. Take it from Chan, who says, “I’ve found that when choosing a plant based ingredient over the fossil fuel option, we always have an added skincare benefit from the ingredient, which is probably why we have so many people saying that their skin got better with BYO Blush.”
To get more insight on how we approach clean beauty, check out the video below.
