2017 Green Beauty Barometer data now available

31-Oct-2017 - Last updated on 31-Oct-2017 at 14:59 GMT

Skin care brand Kari Gran has announced the results of its third annual Green Beauty Barometer survey, conducted in partnership with Harris Poll. The new data shows what ingredients natural cosmetics and personal care shoppers avoid, what categories they plan to shop most, and much more.

Seattle, Washington – based Kari Gran skin care was launched in 2012 by Kari Gran and Lisa Strain. And the two women continue to run the natural beauty brand today, with Gran focusing on product development and Strain managing ecommerce, operations, etc. The brand’s product portfolio comprises not only skin care but also color cosmetics and sun care, formulated with plant-based ingredients and essential oils.

For the past three years Kari Gran has teamed up with Harris Poll (a subsidiary of Nielsen since 2014) to survey green beauty consumers, gathering data on where the natural beauty market stands and where it is headed.

“As a company, we've seen the growth in demand for green beauty products firsthand,” says Strain in a media release announcing this year’s Green Beauty Barometer data.

She goes on to explain further that “in the last three years alone, our sales are up 235%, we've expanded into major beauty retailers and overseas, and we'll continue to innovate as we help educate women to look at beauty product labels just as closely as they do food product labels.”

Made without

Formulating, labeling, and marketing beauty products on a made-without platform has been a successful strategy for many alternative cosmetics and personal care brands trying to reach shoppers who are wary of particular ingredients and no longer trust conventional formulations.

According to the 2017 Green Beauty Barometer these are the top 8 ingredients that natural beauty consumers look to avoid:

31% avoid products formulated with sulfates
23% avoid parabens
18% avoid synthetic fragrance
14% avoid oxybenzone
12% avoid PEG compounds
11% avoid mineral oil
11% avoid nanoparticles
10% avoid retinyl palmitate

Naturally popular

Consumer demand is expected to grow in the months and years ahead, and this year’s Green Beauty Barometer Data bears that out.

Of women who will only buy naturals or plan to buy more naturals over the next two years:

38% will buy skin care
31% will buy hair care
30% will buy makeup (color cosmetics)
26% will buy sunscreen
19% will buy fragrance
and 20% will buy more natural nail care products

This breakdown mirrors the current category ranking of natural beauty sales, according to the survey’s figures. But the data also suggests that more women in every age bracket are now shopping for natural beauty.

“While 75% of Millennial women said purchasing green beauty products is important to them, this year's data show women in their mid-thirties to mid-fifties are increasingly placing importance on purchasing all-natural beauty products,” as the media release states.

This year 69% of women age 35 -44 say buying all-natural beauty products is important; that’s up 10% over 2016. And 68% of women 45 – 54 said the same, which is an 11% increase from 2016.

Learn more about the Green Beauty Barometer and access this year’s complete data here.