Rise of wellness: the ‘clean beauty’ trend

Tying together several major trends - such as naturals and organics, personalisation and niche beauty - clean beauty looks set to dominate.

CosmeticsDesign spoke to the organiser of a recent clean beauty industry event in London, Clean Cult, who explained that the rise of clean beauty has followed on from the enthusiasm for clean eating, driven by bloggers like Deliciously Ella.

“If you're being conscious of what you’re eating - eating clean and making sure you’re not consuming anything processed - it’s a paradox not then to follow that through with what you’re putting on your skin​,” explained Dominika, co-founder of Clean Beauty Co.

Global trend​

With technology and natural ingredients pushing the direction of innovation in beauty, health and wellness has been picked out by market research firms as a key influence likely to lead the trends for the next decade​.

Although currently particularly popular in western markets and in Australia, the potential of the health and wellness trend has an increasingly global reach: it was recently picked out as a top trend set to define the Asia market too​.

Superfoods & claims concern​

A trend driven by the rise of a similar emphasis on naturals and organics in the neighbouring food industry, clean beauty is now seeing the emergence of ‘superfood’ ingredients as a big trend​

Naturals and organics claims continue to hold considerable sway: recent Mintel data shows that 47% of consumers consider ‘free from chemicals’ as the main indicator natural cosmetics, and that UK consumers respond particularly well to natural claims such as “formulated without parabens”.

However, increasingly the lack of formal definition with any regulatory meaning to terms such as ‘natural’ and ‘superfood’ is coming under increasing scrutiny​.

100% natural​

Brands and suppliers are starting to respond in earnest to the consumer demand. Joomo, for example, recently launched what the company claims is the world’s first 100% natural face wash​.

In a similar move at the formulation level, Alban Muller recently put what it claims is a new, 100% natural salicylic acid molecule on the market.​