Don't worry, I am not against vegan beauty!

Let me start by saying that I have nothing against vegan beauty or veganism! I do not take issue of any kind with a vegan approach to life or a vegan ingredients.  If the ingredients is clean and pro-health then I am going to go back it!  But unfortunately vegan beauty does not necessarily have a focus on it's consumers health and wellness and  this is where the issue lies for me and where I do have a problem.   Quite simply, vegan beauty does not equal clean beauty.  It can be clean but by no means does a beauty product having the word "vegan" on the back of it confirm it to be a clean product.  

The word vegan has become a priority in the beauty industry and in many respects, rightly so.  Animals should not play a part in our beauty world and animal testing is unacceptable.  Personally, whilst I don't believe animal suffering should take place in the beauty world, I don't feel a need for all beauty products to be vegan because I am a big believer in the benefits of certain non vegan ingredients (such a honey) to be a huge benefit to human health.  But let me say it again:  Vegan beauty does not equal clean beauty.

What Vegan Beauty Isn’t (and Why It’s Not Always Clean)

There is a great belief amongst beauty consumers that vegan products must automatically be clean.  The logic understandably makes sense.  If a company is pro animal rights and taking care of nature, then surely it must be pro clean-living and producing products that have our health benefits at the forefront of its brand?  Sadly this is not the case.  The beauty industry is business and it is BIG business. The beauty industry generates $677B–$703B per year globally, making it one of the largest consumer industries and I can assure you, no one at the top of that food chain wants to see those numbers declining.

So how does the word "vegan" help brands continue to make big money?

Whilst the beauty industry is loved by billions of people all over the world, it has some major environmental issues that it needs to significantly manage and clean beauty has come to be somewhat of a thorn in the side of the beauty industry.  A spotlight has now been placed on the beauty industry and it's waste and ingredients choice.

However, when clean beauty first came along it did not have a massive impact on the industry at large.  It was referred to as green beauty back then and there were only a few brands out there battling to make a way in the beauty industry.  To begin with the quality of clean beauty did not stand up against tried and tested formulas in the beauty industry that were loved by millions and which had been around with glowing reviews for what felt like forever.  Understandably, the clean beauty industry posed no threat to the rest of the industry and big brands steamed on in the same way as usual- i.e churning out fast, chemically harmful makeup and skincare, whilst making a lot of money doing it.

Clean Beauty Has Joined the Race: How Clean Beauty Differs From Vegan Beauty

Things changed though.  Clean beauty stopped being behind the drag curve and slowly but surely upped its game and very much became part of the big leagues.  Brands like Ilia and RMS Beauty soared and many more brands joined them.  There is a clean brand in the US called MOB Beauty, set up by Victor Casale who was the original chief chemist for MAC Cosmetics.  He is the creator behind long lasting colours and piments that MAC is so well known for, but he moved into the clean sector and founded (along with Alisha Gallagher, and Béatrice Séguin) MOB Beauty which is a high performance clean beauty brand and completely sustainable.  MOB has behind it a chemist who knows exactly what a product needs to make it reliable and pigmentally beautiful whilst also knowing how to use clean ingredients to create it. 

So we can see that clean beauty has come a long way and we are far from the days when the clean beauty industry didn't pose a threat to the rest of the beauty industry.  We are living now in a time when the beauty industry needs to keep up with the hunger for clean and sustainable living that so much of society strives for.  Hence why the word vegan has become, in my opinion, such an untrusted word in beauty.  It is very easy to write "vegan" on a product.  The word vegan has no regulation in the beauty industry and there is no requirement for a brand to meet certain standards to be able to apply the term vegan to their brand. It can be used at will without any legal obligations.  Thankfully there are organisations out there, such as Leaping Bunny and PETA, that have a recognised vegan trademark logo, but it is not obligatory for brands to use this if they are claiming to be cruelty free or vegan.

Vegan Regulation: Why “Vegan” Is an Unregulated Beauty Claim

So guess what, suddenly every brand is adding vegan to it's label and joining the sustainable living team!  And yes, many small clean brands are truly vegan and I celebrate and applaud them for their commitment to a different type of beauty and we stock many of them! But there are many brands out there exploiting the term.  Some will be exploiting the lack of regulation around the term vegan and may in fact still use ingredients that are not truly vegan.  Other brands, and I think this is a much more regular route brands take, is that they say they are vegan - and guess what?  They actually are!  But in addition to their vegan ingredients, they still use others ingredients that cause hormone disruption, skin barrier damage, increased acceleration of the signs of aging, irritation, inflammation, respiratory irritation, allergic reactions and damage to the environment.  Not including the studies that are still being done on the link between cancer growth and certain harmful ingredients.

So I am not saying you shouldn't want to have vegan brands if a vegan way of life is important to you but you do need to be more aware of the ingredients that are in any product that states to be "vegan", "clean", "natural" and "organic" because it does not mean that they are following vegan beauty regulation.  These products could still include:  parabens, phthalates, synthetic fragrance, sulfates, microplastics and petrochemicals.

What We Believe

That is why Just BeYOUtiful exists.  We want to champion brands that are truly committed to your health and also the environment.  Every brand and product goes through rigorous checking and testing before joining the shelves of Just BeYOUtiful because we want to take the hard work out of beauty for you.  Shopping with us means we have your best interests at heart and enables you to live a clean beauty life without the extra hard work.  Why not take a look at what clean beauty means to us

For anymore information please contact us via our contact form or on IG.  Enjoying browsing out clean beauty skincare and makeup collections.

Amy x