Sephora’s Stepping Up Its Clean Beauty Game

Beauty mecca Sephora isn’t as well-known for its clean beauty line-up as other stores like, say, Credo or Cap Beauty. However, Sephora’s trying to change all that and cash in on one of the industry’s biggest trends with the release of a new Clean at Sephora Campaign.
This year the store’s celebrating its 20th anniversary and as part of the celebration is giving natural beauty obsessives what they want: more clean, natural, and seriously effective products. “We know over 60 percent of women that buy beauty read the label before they do, and over 54 percent want to know if it’s natural or clean and what ingredients are in there,” Artemis Patrick, Sephora’s chief merchandising officer, told WWD in an interview. “It’s not about whether it’s good or it’s bad, it’s about being transparent.”
The terms “clean” and “natural” aren’t formally regulated in the beauty industry, leaving it up to brands to define as they see fit. Sephora is tackling this issue by introducing its own set of guidelines for what constitutes “clean” as part of the new campaign. Clean at Sephora will spotlight—and dub “clean”—products that are made without ingredients like surfactants, a time of chemical that makes products foamy, as well as SLS and SLES, parabens, formaldehyde, phthalates, musks, or mineral oil. All of the Clean at Sephora products must also contain less than one percent synthetic fragrances.
To roll-out the campaign, Sephora’s introducing in-store displays and will be grouping clean products together. Online, makeup and skincare that ticks all of Sephora’s clean criteria will be labeled with a Clean at Sephora sticker to let you know just what to expect. Think: Caudalie, Tata Harper, Drunk Elephant, Supergoop, and dozens of other brands spanning more than 2,000 different products. Clean at Sephora will kick off in June, clean beauty fans.