Clean eating has taken over food and diet trends over the last few years, with varying arguments and debates as to what that means and how attainable it is.
But just as important as what you put inside your body is what you use on the outside. Thus, clean beauty is one of the newest health-minded retail trends tapping into a variety of familiar terms now harnessed together, such as organic and natural ingredients, free of harmful chemicals, and—especially popular with social media influencers now—encouraging self-care.
Brandless, an e-commerce brand that hawks personal and household products under one blanket “Brandless” label,” is diving deeper on the personal vertical with a new line touted to promote clean beauty.
“It is now commonplace to apply values filters to the food we eat,” says Brandless co-founder and co-chair Tina Sharkey. “We are now applying similar standards to what we put on our bodies.”
Priced between $4 and $8 flat, the expanded product line includes vegan makeup brushes; 100% plant-based facial wipes; eye gel formulated with green tea, pomegranate, and caffeine; and rose water facial toner spray.
The flat, and relatively low, price tags are key to Brandless’s strategy. Sharkey says Brandless is expanding into new categories “with a focused intention on democratizing access to high-quality products at fair prices to help our community have access to the things they are seeking to live their modern lives.”
Keeping the price points low not only entice customers who might want something more aesthetically pleasing than most drugstore products, but it also makes goods touting to be eco-friendly (which often come with a markup) more attainable by most consumers across income levels.
This isn’t exactly new territory for the company. Founded in 2017, Brandless launched with 115 items available in its digital store, then already advertised to be both health and environmentally-conscious.
The company has since grown to sell more than 350 products since then. Among its offerings include an entire subsection dedicated to “Non-GMO” food, described to being produced without any synthetic preservatives or flavors; cruelty-, paraben-, and even tree-free personal care products; and dog collars made with hemp and cotton.
Brandless reps stress that the new line is “free of over 400 questionable ingredients, including sulfates, parabens, phthalates, polypropylene and synthetic fragrances.”
This could be just the beginning for a much larger enterprise for Brandless. But they won’t be alone as the beauty industry has seen a revolution in the last few years with a number of new brands capitalizing on clean beauty—or even just familiar beauty products, repackaged and sold with new incentives for consumers.
But Brandless’s braintrust doesn’t seem worried. “There is plenty of room in the $70 billion beauty industry for brands to introduce more clean beauty options like Beautycounter and the brands with the Clean at Sephora seal and more options inspired by their community like Glossier,” Sharkey says. “Our firm belief is that high quality, transparency, simplicity and affordability can all be represented in an edited collection of products that captures the way people want to live today. And everyone deserves that choice.”
Remarking that “our labs never sleep,” Sharkey says that the team has an active roadmap with its next big drop scheduled for this summer.
“Clean beauty is here to stay,” Sharkey says. “People want better ingredients and transparency around them. The empowered consumer is an informed one.
