Conscious Beauty Reshapes the Beauty Sphere

Clean Beauty has established itself as a new benchmark for the beauty industry, and today's environmental challenges are driving a new commitment from companies in the sector. This trend is reshaping the future of beauty: welcome to the era of Conscious Beauty.

What is Conscious Beauty?

“Conscious Beauty" integrates all the dimensions of a cosmetic product, from its safety and benefits for the consumer to its environmental and ethical impact.

"Conscious Beauty" is not a regulated term and does not really have a fixed definition; its frame of reference can vary according to the regions of the world and the different players. For US retailer Ulta, Conscious Beauty is defined by non-controversial ("clean") ingredients, cruelty-free and vegan products, sustainable packaging and positive impact. Generally speaking, for beauty companies, Conscious Beauty is above all an awareness of the impact their products have on consumers, the environment and society. It's a desire to have a positive impact, or, as far as the environment is concerned, as little negative impact as possible. The Conscious Beauty area at MakeUp In Los Angeles, Paris and New York, which highlights companies committed to this approach, is organized around three themes: raw materials, green chemistry and eco-design.

Choosing Natural, Renewable Raw Materials

For consumers, the choice of ingredients is a fairly obvious lever: natural ingredients are highly sought-after, even demanded. But what about sustainability? Because that's the real issue with Conscious Beauty: getting away from the easy marketing argument of natural ingredients, and delving into the origins of raw materials and the processes used to obtain them. Sustainability and the renewable nature of resources are the new imperatives. Favoring natural raw materials, yes, but in an ethical way: no food competition, not depleting the resource or preferring renewable biomass, for example.

So it's hardly surprising to see more and more ingredients and materials coming onto the market as a result of upcycling. This is the valorization of co-products or waste, such as the manufacture of ingredients from invasive algae or cider apple pomace, or alcohol from co-products of the manufacture of legume proteins for food.?

Beyond Naturalness, the Purification of Green Chemistry

As natural ingredients have their limits, it is sometimes necessary to resort to synthesis. It's counter-intuitive for the general public, but sometimes it's more sustainable than natural! All the more so with the rise of green chemistry, also known as sustainable chemistry. It aims to develop synthetic/chemical products and processes that consume fewer resources and produce less waste and toxic substances. Based on 12 fundamental principles, it takes into account the entire life cycle of a chemical substance, for a synthesis that is more respectful of the environment and individuals.

Scientists and companies involved in green chemistry in the beauty industry are working to develop innovative, sustainable alternatives to hazardous and polluting substances and processes. Bio-sourced solvents, renewable resources, rationalization of energy and water consumption, waste reduction... The list of possible sustainable levers in the life cycle of a cosmetic product is long. Because it's no longer possible to look at things from the smallest angle: Conscious Beauty is a global approach.

Towards a Global Approach: Eco-Design

This global approach to Conscious Beauty is embodied in the eco-design of products. Its aim is to reduce the environmental impact of products throughout their life cycle: raw materials, production, distribution, use and end-of-life. The notion of life cycle is fundamental to this approach, and product life cycle analysis (LCA) is the central tool. Each stage in the value chain is assessed to improve its environmental and ethical profile. Here again, naturalness is no longer enough to ease one's conscience: a product that is natural but made from raw materials from the other side of the world, extracted with polluting solvents, is not really sustainable... Eco-design must therefore be a real commitment, not just a marketing argument (or a regulatory compliance measure!).

Conclusion

For Conscious Beauty Area exhibitors, commitment to Conscious Beauty means making the choice to do better. Better for people, but also for the environment. Communicating this commitment is nonetheless complex, as it's easy to fall into the trap of greenwashing, which current and future regulations aim to curb. But it's important not to wait for perfection before doing so, because for consumers, what isn't shown doesn't exist. And as the saying goes, better done than perfect.

Check out the list of Conscious Beauty Area exhibitors and their products from MakeUp in LosAngeles 2024 here.

Join us at MakeUp in Paris (May 29 and 30, 2024), MakeUp in NewYork (September 18 and 19, 2024), and MakeUp in LosAngeles (February 12 and 13, 2025).

Article written by: Marie Dehlinger