Hey y’all. I was reading this 2020 article called “Are Beauty Brands Intentionally Hiding Their Ingredients?” by Jessica Defino, and she lists examples of beauty brands who have hidden their ingredients online in the past or still today.
I have also noticed this happen in the “Clean Beauty” space, and I find this to be very sketchy and will not support brands who engage in these practices. Here are some examples from the article
- La Prarie: “In my opinion, brands who do not display their ingredients are most definitely doing this intentionally”… Sometimes, it’s to protect profits. “If you’re going to spend $300 on a single product, you are more likely to read all the information provided because it’s not an impulse buy,” Parr explains. If said product includes, say, possibly-carcinogenic butylated hydroxytoluene and potentially-hormone-disrupting parabens (as is the case with La Prairie Skin Caviar, $510, the ingredients of which are not available on La Prairie’s site), consumers may be quicker to ask questions and slower to spend money.
- Beauty Blender: “The brand has chosen not to disclose the contents of its Bounce Foundation on its site, save to say they’re made with “all of the good” and “none of the bad.” This gives the impression that the products are very nice and safe. In reality, Beautyblender formulates with talc (asbestos contamination is a concern, leading many cosmetics corporations to “quietly move away from” formulating with the ingredient), PEGs (created through ethoxylation, a method that uses ethylene oxide, a known carcinogen, and can result in contamination from 1,4 dioxane, another known carcinogen), and fragrance” (update: BB appears to now be listing the ingredients for this foundation!)
I also noticed that this sub’s recent low-level villain, Sahi Cosmetics, touts a “Clean Beauty Promise” with ingredients that will “NEVER” be in their products. A redditor commented a couple weeks ago that lots of the products on the Sahi Cosmetics site don’t have ingredients listed, so I used the wayback machine and found that the ingredients used to be listed. Many contain ingredients that they say they "NEVER" use, which makes me suspect that the ingredients might have been hidden for this reason? Some examples:
- Carbon Black appears present in the 'Snatched and Glowing' Eye & Face Kit — the Precise FeltTip Liner specifically
- Aluminum Salts appear to be present in the Under Eye Creamy Concealer (Aluminum Hydroxide is an emulsifier and pH adjuster, and can fall into the aluminum salts category. Additionally,. Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate falls under aluminum salts)
- Aluminal Salts also appear to be present in some of the baked blushes ( Magnesium Aluminum Silicate, Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate, and Calcium Sodium Borosilicate all contain aluminum compounds)
- SLES (Sodium Laureth Sulfate) and Mineral Oil are present in the Waterproof Mascara (Paraffin is a type of mineral oil; plus Microcrystalline Wax (Cera Microcristallina)).
- Many of these products contain Phenoxyethanol (okay if it’s less than 1%, but the concentration is not listed) and Titanium Dioxide, which if in neoparticle form would also be a violation of the clean beauty initiative (but it’s unclear what form it is in).
- Talc: it’s also worth noting that the Baked Blushes, which do not have ingredients currently listed on the website, also contain Talc. I think most of us are aware of the risk of Talc contamination (even if small) when it comes to private labeled goods, and this is an ingredient that clean beauty-conscious consumers will want to know is in the products or not.
Does anyone have other examples to share that I can add to my list of brands who appear to have hidden their full ingredients from consumers, or brands claiming to be “Clean” but still using ingredients that are no-nos? Please share if so
by interpol-interpol