Clean beauty addicts have taken it a step further, by taking the time to look into the “safety” of the ingredients in every single one of their cosmetics through the use of apps like Think Dirty, which allows you to search for and scan your products to test the cleanliness of the ingredients. The app then lists out all of the ingredients in the product and color codes them based on their standard of safety, matching them with a number rating on a scale of 1–10. They claim that anything above a 4 may have potential moderate to serious negative long-term health effects. They say the ratings are determined by publicly available data as well as evaluations by experts in fields of chemistry, biology, the FDA, and more. The issue is, negative health effects could mean a whole plethora of things. Does “harmful” mean adult acne, or cancer? The range is huge. Apps like this can cause users to become obsessive and feel like everything they are putting onto their skin will lead to something dangerous. So, more and more people are going shopping in hopes of finding a clean alternative.

Clean beauty brands have been popping up by the dozens, with Sephora even jumping on the bandwagon by stamping non-toxic products with their “Clean by Sephora” logo, which is, of course, a green circle with a leaf. One of these brands is lilah b., founded by Cheryl Foland. Prior to her entrepreneurial leap, Foland worked with brands like Urban Decay and Too Faced to improve their sampling strategies, but she was living a life with no balance. She wore layers and layers of makeup, was constantly changing and fussing with her brunette locks, and was always itching to keep up with the newest designer handbags. She had a high strung demeanor and was overworking herself to no end. When the opportunity to relocate to the chill, meditation obsessed, juice-loving West coast, she went for it. No longer was it about that next pair of Louboutins, but about walking out the door in jeans, a T-shirt and maybe, just maybe, a dab of lipstick. This is exactly the vibe of lilah b.; a minimalistic, throw it on and walk out the door type of beauty line. “The philosophy of the brand is very much an extension of my newfound philosophy. Our tagline is ‘with less you are more.’” Every product is packaged in a sleek, white stone shaped container that can fit right in the palm of your hand or in a small purse. The ingredient list hits all of the buzzwords for a clean beauty fanatic; paraben-free, vegan, fragrance-free and more. So when shoppers are browsing through Sephora searching for a clean option, this is definitely something they would gravitate towards. Other popular brands that have similar stories and values include Kosas, Au Naturale, Kjaer Weis, among others. Director of Marketing for Kosas, Beth Risley, says that clean is in the DNA of their brand. But, when marketing to consumers, they try to stay away from fear mongering.

It seems to be the trend with many of the clean beauty brands that they are marketed by their ability to have the same level of performance as a generic product, but also they are serving the “natural” woman who cares about her health and future, and less about a full coverage, glam look.

But people like Kyeisha Washington, the founder of Clean Beauty Artists, say otherwise. “Clean beauty has come a long way,” she says. “It used to be such a struggle to find a full coverage foundation or a pigmented lipstick, but now it is totally doable to do a glamorous and glittery look on a client.”

Washington only started her business in 2017 and says the amount of clean and natural products that are high performing have increased dramatically. She has clients come to her who are looking to use only clean products but also want to achieve a Scarlett Johansson at the Oscars look, and they are able to give her exactly what she wants.