Plain Sight: How Transparency And Traceability Are Becoming Key Components Of The Beauty Industry
Transparency – not product – is the biggest thing in beauty right now. Savvy brands and retailers are now adopting an upfront approach to what’s in your skincare so there’s less chance of products greenwashing their way into your beauty routine
The beauty landscape is changing. Gone are the days when a brand could make vague claims about its animal testing credentials or name check an exotic ‘natural’ ingredient and expect to have shoppers blindly purring with delight. A powerful new consumer is emerging who demands transparency – from food labelling to face serums. And, crucially, they aren’t afraid to question whether a product is ethical before deciding to part with their dirham or use the power of social media to call out brands. A slicker internet experience has transformed the way we shop, too. Consumers today can easily become ‘skintellectuals’, knowledgeable about their skin and the ingredients that can have a positive or negative impact on both their face and the planet. So it’s hardly surprising that for a growing cohort of beauty disruptors, information gatekeeping is now an outdated concept.
One such retailer is Powder, which launched in the UAE in 2018 as a destination for conscious beauty. It’s taking customer empowerment to the next level by being the first in the region to introduce an Ingredient Analysis tool on its site. According to Powder co-founder Ayat Toufeeq, the time was right for what she calls ‘unconditional transparency’. “There’s a global cultural shift towards more conscious consumption,” she says. “We’re more aware than ever about what we’re putting in and on our bodies, and the environmental impact of our choices,” she adds. “The days of blindly trusting mainstream brands are behind us but this also means that we’re now being bombarded with new and confusing product claims, most of which are baseless marketing. This raises the demand for brands to substantiate their claims with real, objective information.”
In order to do just that, a database of over 39,000 ingredients allows Powder’s customers to simply hover over any part of the ingredient list to instantly view a breakdown of an ingredient’s source; what its purpose is in a cosmetic formulation; its effect on the skin and other information about environmental concerns. “Our customers are noticeably becoming more educated on issues around sustainability,” says Toufeeq. “We see it as our mission to arm our community with the information to know exactly what they’re putting on their skin.”
Likewise, Net-a-Porter is tackling the semantics of ‘natural’ by adding sustainable beauty brands such as Emma Lewisham, the world’s first carbon-positive line, to the Net Sustain platform. Each product is individually assessed by the luxury retailer so you can trust that it meets one or more pillars, ranging from considered materials, ingredients and processes to reducing waste. “Our global brand partners report that our sustainability criteria is the toughest standard they have come across in the industry,” says Newby Hands, global beauty director at Net-A-Porter. “Because there’s no clear criteria when it comes to products tagged as ‘natural’, ‘green’ or ‘clean’, consumers have become all too aware of greenwashing and how certain wording or claims may not have any basis. So being transparent helps everyone.” It’s an approach that’s clearly working: 65 per cent of Net-A-Porter’s beauty customers now actively consider sustainability credentials when shopping.
This trend for transparency is trickling down to individual brands, too. Newly launched Byoma, whose pastel-coloured packaging is catnip for millennials, is on a mission to address the misinformation on social media that’s leading to compromised skin barriers and sensitivity. Each ingredient and its purpose in the formula is listed on products such as the Hydrating Serum. Meanwhile, Codex, a plant-powered biotech brand, has addressed the nebulous term of ‘clean beauty’. By publishing the data from its clinical tests, founder Dr Barbara Paldus busts the myth that a plant grown in a muddy field is better than an ingredient grown in a laboratory. “The concentration of skincare actives from using plant cell cultures in a bioreactor can, in some cases, be up to 100 times higher than a typical natural extract,” she says.
Even major players like L’Oréal are recognising the importance of transparency, in particular the traceability of ingredients. Ana Kljuic, vice president of research and innovation at L’Oréal for the Future & Green Sciences, zeroed in on the company’s programme for centella asiatica, a key ingredient for La Roche-Posay, Kiehl’s and L’Oréal Paris. It has gradually domesticated part of the crop in Madagascar to prevent overharvesting and partnered with the Union for Ethical BioTrade to ensure every stage of the supply chain is traceable, details of which are even available on L’Oréal’s website. “Part of the centella asiatica crop we use comes from wild harvest and part from domestication,” Kljuic explains. “We have ten farmers working specifically on the two plots to make sure that we have the right balance and we don’t put stress on either source of the plant.” She adds, “Traceability is absolutely the right thing.”
Photography by Monika Lis
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s June 2022 issue.