In Conversation with Boma-Brown West: Pursuing a Unified Definition of Clean Beauty
In Conversation with Boma-Brown West: Pursuing a Unified Definition of Clean Beauty
Since this conversation, Environmental Defense Fund has published its Clean Beauty Roadmap for Retailers, offering a clear and timely guide for companies to restore and build consumers’ confidence in “clean” and “safe,” products. It equips them to move beyond the practice of claiming to be “free of” a group of hazards or restricted substances -- no matter how extensive -- and instead offer the credible assurance that ingredients have been thoroughly and credibly assessed and found to be free of hazards. Read ChemFORWARD’s perspective here.
“Clean” has grown to dominate the growth in the beauty sector, with prestige beauty brands claiming to be clean surging 39 percent in 2019 and doubling their share of high-end skincare sales in the last four years.
Yet a harmonized definition, understood and trusted by shoppers and agreed upon by the industry remains elusive, even as “clean” is emerging as the gold standard for customers jaded by discoveries of harmful ingredients and toxic contaminants in the products they buy.
ChemFORWARD Executive Director Stacy Glass sat down to talk with Boma Brown-West, director of consumer health at Environmental Defense Fund. Brown-West is an engineer who works at the intersection of science, policy and corporate leadership to drive safer products in the retail marketplace. Glass leads a nongovernmental organization working to provide a shared database of chemical hazards and safer alternatives, allowing companies to use better information to make safer products.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Watch all of ChemFORWARD’s Science of Clean Beauty Videos Here
SG: Why is clean beauty so important to EDF?
BW: EDF has been working for a long time toward creating a safer marketplace and safer cosmetics. I’m happy to say that our work and the work of our fellow NGOs has really helped in terms of spurring a number of companies to set commitments.
Today retailers that make up over 50% of cosmetics sales like Walmart, Target, Sephora, and Amazon have set chemicals policies aimed at reducing and eliminating chemicals of concern from cosmetic products.
“Clean,” especially “clean beauty,” has really become a destination for customers looking for products they can trust, that won’t expose them to toxic chemicals. They’re flocking to it.
EDF sees “clean beauty” as a critical way for companies to move faster towards a safer marketplace and meet their chemical policy goals. However, without a common definition or standard for the term, there’s a major lack of accountability and sense of responsibility for how companies should approach offering clean beauty products.
SG: Would a harmonized definition of clean beauty accelerate the availability of safer products?
BW: For us at EDF, clean beauty should stand for products with the lowest human health and environmental impacts that the market can offer today.
It would be great to have a harmonized definition. Instead of a marketing gimmick or just catering to a small segment of consumers you know are already looking for clean or sustainable attributes, companies can root their offering in a safer chemistry philosophy, which is about both removing chemicals of concern and using verified safer alternatives.
SG: What are benefits that companies enjoy when they follow that framework?
BW: One is around reputation and customer loyalty. All of this work in safer products and especially in cleaner beauty is about trust. It's about the trust that a consumer is putting in a company, to purchase products for themselves and their families that they believe are going to be safe.
Another is showing your competitors and your own investors that you are taking a proactive approach when it comes to managing toxic chemicals.
It also helps companies gain market share and improve their bottom line. The demand for sustainable and safe products just continues to grow, and companies that engage with this market can gain a competitive advantage.
SG: There isn't' a sector of the economy where equity isn't important and these issues have certainly been in the spotlight recently. How do you see that coming through beauty and personal care?
BW: We do see disparities when you look at beauty products, particularly in products that are marketed to women of color.
Research shows there is often a greater number of toxic chemicals, in particular endocrine disruptors, in products marketed to women of color. So there is definitely an equity issue here.
When we look across the clean beauty landscape, one question that comes to mind is: is there an equal number of safe options being marketed to women of color? That's definitely a place where clean beauty can lead the industry to do better.
SG: Can you talk to us about the role of data in clean beauty?
BW: Data plays a big role! Why are consumers flocking to clean beauty products? They want products that are not going to increase their exposure to toxic chemicals. They are putting their trust in companies and in order to meet that trust, companies have to have data.
Companies can look at data on the types of chemical hazards in their products which can lead to chronic diseases and disorders. Let's not forget we're talking about beauty products, products that people use on their bodies every single day. Women use on average 16 products just on our face per day. It’s vitally important to think about the chemicals that can increase exposure to certain chronic hazards.
Companies can also use chemical hazard assessments to understand and compare candidates for replacement ingredients to be confident they are safer than the original.
SG: What are three pieces of advice you would give to companies who want to pursue clean?
BW: One: don’t think of clean beauty as a niche part of your portfolio; don’t think of consumers of color as a niche part of your catalog -- think about how holding these topics at the center of your outlook will improve your entire portfolio.
Two: embrace transparency. Supply chain transparency is helpful in providing the data you need to make your program credible. Transparency with consumers is essential for giving them reassurance of what’s behind your definition of clean. EDF created a demo of what that looks like at sustainableshopping.com.
Three: Most of today’s clean beauty is focused on ingredients that are not in the products. We also need greater attention on the ingredients that ARE in the products and what companies are doing to verify those ingredients don’t present the same or equivalent hazards.
