Greenwashing in Beauty: What You Need to Know (Part 1)

Walk through any beauty aisle, and you’ll see it – products labelled natural, eco-friendly, clean, green, plant-powered, dermatologist-recommended, and more. But what do those words actually mean? And who decides if they’re true?

The answer? Often… no one.

That’s the problem with greenwashing – a practice where brands use sustainability-related marketing claims to appear more eco-conscious or cleaner than they really are.

Let’s unpack what greenwashing looks like in the beauty industry – and how you can spot it.

💚 What Is Greenwashing?

Greenwashing is when a company pretends to be environmentally responsible through marketing, packaging, and messaging — but without doing the work to back it up. It’s a PR act that often hides unethical practices, cheap ingredients, and unsustainable packaging.

In beauty, greenwashing can show up in two big ways:

1.          Ingredient greenwashing: Claiming to be natural, clean, or organic without actually formulating it like that.

2.          Sustainability greenwashing: Using words like eco-friendly while continuing to use single-use plastic and high-waste processes.

🚩 Common Greenwashing Red Flags to Watch Out For

 

1. Fluffy Buzzwords With No Proof

Many terms like “clean,” “natural,” “eco-friendly,” “non-toxic,” “green,” and “pure” are completely unregulated. There’s no governing body that checks if your “natural face wash” is actually natural – or even safe.

🧴 Example: A moisturiser labelled “eco-friendly” – but made with propylene glycol (a petrochemical) and packed in a plastic bottle.

2. Highlighting One ‘Hero’ Natural Ingredient

A brand may tout that their face serum contains “aloe vera” or “rosehip oil,” while the rest of the formula is full of silicones, PEGs, and artificial fragrance.

🌿 Example: A lotion marketed as “with organic coconut oil” might only have 0.01% coconut oil and mostly synthetic ingredients.

3. Green Packaging = Green Product? Not Always.

Just because a product is green in colour doesn’t mean it’s green in values. Many brands use brown cardboard aesthetics, leafy labels, and earthy colours to signal sustainability – but the actual materials and formula may not be conscious at all.

🧃 Example: A ‘sustainable’ face mask wrapped in glossy laminated packaging — which can’t even be recycled.

4. Highlighting One Sustainable Element… and Ignoring the Rest

You’ll often see ‘recyclable’ plastered on a plastic tube. While the material might be technically recyclable, 91% of plastic globally is never recycled – it goes straight to landfills. So, selling products in ‘recyclable’ plastic is not sustainable.

📦 Example: A brand using glass jars (which are recyclable) but constantly launching new, unnecessary products every month.