Key Takeaways:
In the early 2000s, when 1,4-dioxane started to be removed in personal care raw materials through vacuum stripping, clean beauty felt revolutionary. Finally someone was paying attention to what was in the products we used daily. Banning ingredients linked to high hazards felt like a radical act of consumer protection.
Fast forward twenty-five years: Those bans are table stakes. Today, “clean” can be found everywhere: on drugstore shelves, in luxury boutiques, and of course, hashtagged across social media. Consumers try to keep up, decipher ingredient blacklists, but a word that once meant something specific has become confusing. And the beauty industry is still struggling to answer a deceptively simple question: What does clean actually mean?
Here's Where Clean Beauty 1.0 Went Wrong
The first wave of clean beauty—call it Clean Beauty 1.0—was mostly about playing defense. Brands created exhaustive “no-no lists,” banning hundreds of ingredients from parabens to phthalates. “Free from” became the headline. Consumers liked the sense of control and drove market share with their purchasing power.
But eventually, amid the sea of blacklists and misinformation fed by algorithms, the industry forgot that removing toxic ingredients is really just the beginning. The bigger “toxic” problem is how we make our beauty products and package them for consumers.
According to a 2024 United Nations Environment Programme report, the beauty industry generates roughly 120 million tons of plastic waste annually, much of it single-use and not recyclable. Water use is another major sustainability hurdle: beauty products are typically 60%-85% water, and even more is consumed during ingredient cultivation, manufacturing, and packaging production. Meanwhile, the sector’s overall climate impact remains difficult to measure, but it’s known that supply chains are energy- and resource-intensive, driven by global manufacturing and transport.
Today, brands compete over “clean” claims rather than tackling these deeper, systemic problems. A product can be “paraben-free” and “vegan” yet still contribute dramatically to climate change, water scarcity, ecosystem pollution, and landfill overflow.
Building Clean Beauty 2.0
We think clean beauty needs a reboot. This time, it’s not about rehashing no-no lists, but about transforming how our industry works and scaling it up. Our goal should be to create products that regenerate rather than extract; that give back more than they take.
So here is our first draft of what Clean Beauty 2.0 could mean. Don’t think of it as the definitive declaration but rather as a departure point, a place to begin the conversation.
True clean starts at the source. Instead of simply “natural” ingredients, the goal should be responsible sourcing, whether plant-based, lab-grown, or synthetic. Biotechnology now allows us to make high-performance ingredients from sugarcane, algae, or yeast (as examples) instead of petroleum. Moreover, zero-waste processing isn't optional anymore; upcycling waste streams reduces a product’s total impact. These advanced bio-based materials reduce our carbon footprint, cut our impact on land and water use, and boost climate resilience.
Packaging is part of the product. Consumers see it first, and too often, it’s the only thing that lasts. Systems-level packaging innovation like using post-consumer recycled plastics or refillable aluminum systems can address the lifecycle of a product (not just what it looks like). The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates that only 14% of plastic packaging globally is recycled. Closing that gap requires both material innovation and infrastructure collaboration.
Radical transparency in manufacturing. Most brands can’t tell you how much energy, water, or waste their contract manufacturers generate. That’s changing fast. New traceability platforms, carbon accounting tools, and blockchain-enabled supply chains make it possible to see upstream impacts in real time. Transparency should not be about overwhelming consumers with data, but rather about measuring what matters, building trust, and demonstrating commitment to continuously improving.
Iteration as a principle. We all know that perfection can stall progress. In this next wave of clean, our mindset needs to be constant improvement: beta-testing new materials, measuring impact, and evolving solutions. In software, updates are constant, and, in our view, beauty should be no different. A moisturizer reformulated with Big Kelp Flex this year could use a carbon-negative emollient next year. Clean 2.0 is iterative, not absolute.
Consumer honesty. Aspirational campaigns are easy to ignore but tangible metrics aren’t. When brands report that their products contain 70% post-consumer recycled material, or that each refill saves 100 grams of plastic and 500 liters of water, those facts stick. They’re measurable, verifiable, and communicable. Clean 2.0 requires clear numbers to verify claims and show progress.
Why This Matters and Why It Pays
There is a clear opportunity ahead of us. Brands, ingredient suppliers, packaging providers, contract manufacturers, bespoke formulators and beauty retailers that embrace this new agenda will be trailblazers. But leading in Clean 2.0 also means more profits, not just more kudos. Here’s how.
Better margins: McKinsey estimates that brands leading in sustainability can see 5%-10% higher margins, driven by consumer loyalty, pricing power, and operational efficiency. Reducing waste lowers costs, more transparency builds trust, and climate resilience protects supply chains.
More loyalty: A 2025 Deloitte survey found that 63% of beauty shoppers are willing to pay more for products with verifiable environmental or social impact but only 22% trust brand claims. Clean 2.0 closes that credibility gap with data, design, and accountability.
Maximum moats: Innovation in materials certainly lowers brand risk against future regulation, but it also represents intellectual property and competitive advantage. The brands that embed these systems early will build bigger moats and more resilience into their business models.
The harder, more inspiring path forward
It goes without saying, this transition will be hard. Reengineering supply chains, investing in biotech materials, and calculating lifecycle impact takes time and money. But so did removing formaldehyde a generation ago. Each step moved the industry forward and built consumer trust that still pays off today.
The beauty industry has always thrived on imagination and transformation. Imagine a face cream that helps rebuild marine biodiversity, or a cleanser whose bottle is made from last year’s empties, or a supply chain resilient to drought, floods, and geopolitical shocks.
Now is the time to transform how we make the beauty products themselves, not just worry about what’s on the label.
