8 Best Clean Beauty Brands You Can Trust, According to Experts

Beauty brands and products proclaiming to be “clean” are everywhere these days. Why? “It’s possibly because The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which also oversees beauty products, has only banned a limited list of chemicals in cosmetics,” explains Birnur Aral, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Good Housekeeping Institute Beauty, Health and Sustainability Lab. What’s more: “Cosmetics regulations haven’t been modernized since 1938, leading to confusion as to the safety of our everyday cosmetics.”

So while it makes sense that more consumers and more brands are focusing on “clean” ingredients in cosmetics and skincare, it’s important to know that there’s no industry standard for “clean” beauty. “When beauty brands claim that they are clean, they may be referring to a variety of measures that they have taken in formulating their products,” explains Aral. To substantiate clean claims, “some brands may have obtained third party certifications that speak to some of these efforts,” she says. “Others might have formulated products based on an internal ‘no-no’ or ‘red list’ which avoids certain ingredients, and/or have done so to meet the standards of major retailers such as Clean at Sephora, Target Clean, Conscious Beauty at Ulta and Credo Beauty.”

But beware: “There are many brands being marketed as ‘clean’ without a clear definition of what that means for their brand,” says Aral. This can make it difficult to know which brands claiming to be “clean” truly are — and really work. That’s where GH Beauty Lab scientists come in. Our pros know that “clean” is largely a murky marketing term, so they work to thoroughly evaluate these claims in skincare, makeup and hair products to find the ones that live up to their promises in formulation, packaging, manufacturing processes and ensure the products perform well independently of their clean formulations. There are the brands we stand behind and actually work.