November 1, 2022
Dear Friends,
Although I wore a full face of makeup almost daily during the 1980’s and 1990’s, after that I went for almost 15 years rarely putting any makeup on my face at all.
In addition, although I often used a moisturizer containing a few simple ingredients, I didn’t put much thought into skincare during those years either.
A while after the Covid problem emerged, I decided to start experimenting with makeup and skincare products again, both to have something frivolous to think about and because I felt like maybe it could help me to look better as I got older. (I’m now 58.)
My ultimate conclusion was that while there are now many cleaner beauty products out there that are just as good as the dirtier ones in terms of overall performance, figuring out which ones might be worth trying tended to be a tremendously challenging and time-consuming endeavor.
I therefore decided to put together the beauty information on this website, which is designed to present consumers with a wide variety of relevant ingredient and performance information about the cleaner options in each product category.
I have provided in-depth information on almost a thousand products so far, and have tried out at least a sample of most of them myself.
The goal is for people to be able to figure out in just a few minutes which options in a particular category likely will best meet their own particular needs and wants – and then to be happy rather than disappointed with what they bought.
Those who are trying to decide whether or not to buy a particular item may go to the All Skincare Products (Index) or All Makeup Products (Index) pages to see if that product is reviewed on this site and then may click on the relevant link to read the information.
Of course, different people obviously have vastly different needs when it comes to beauty products.
For instance, I would expect that hearing about my own product experiences may be most useful to those who have sensitive and dry skin; who favor a more natural makeup look; and who are in their 40’s or beyond.
However, much of the information on this site also may be relevant to anyone interested in choosing cleaner beauty products, regardless of their individual characteristics or needs.
Those who find this site useful are encouraged to click on the provided retailer links when making purchases, since the resulting compensation generated through company affiliate programs will allow me to improve on this site and keep it updated.
I hope that those who find this site useful also will sign up for the Living Clean email list.
I also hope that users of this site will help to make it better by sharing in the comments sections their own experiences with products as well as suggestions of additional products that might be added to this website.
Thanks so much for visiting the Living Clean site!
Love,
Lisa Petrison
Product Information & Ratings
Following is an explanation of the various information provided for each beauty product profiled on the Living Clean site.
Plus Sign (+): Products listed at the top of each page (in the Living Clean Superstars, Additional Possibilities, Not Yet Rated and Trash Can categories) that contain especially clean ingredient lists (Ingredients Rating = 5) are marked with a “+” sign.
Living Clean Superstars: This category identifies high-rated products (Overall Rating = 5). These products all have relatively clean ingredient lists (Ingredients Rating = 4 or 5) and have performed well for me in all respects (Performance Rating = 5).
Additional Possibilities: These are products that do not meet the qualifications for being Living Clean Superstars but that still may be worth considering by at least some people.
Not Yet Rated: These are products that seem worth considering in terms of their ingredients and that I am planning to try soon.
Trash Can: These are products that I have tried and concluded are problematic enough (either in terms of performance or toxicity issues) that I have not been able to use them and do not feel comfortable suggesting them to others. Details about these products may be found on the Trash Can (Skincare) and Trash Can (Makeup) pages.
Lisa’s Choice: These are products that I have tried and would purchase again for my own personal use. The check mark (√) denotes my current personal favorite product.
Overall Rating: This is an average of the Performance Rating and Ingredients Rating for the product. This rating is rounded up or down in accordance with the Performance Rating if the average is not a whole number.
Performance Rating: This is my own subjective assessment of how well the product may perform for the likely core readers of this website (e.g. women who are 35+ with sensitive skin). Generally (except when the ingredient list includes rose geranium oil or substantial amounts of zinc oxide/titanium dioxide), products that trigger negative reactions for me will be penalized heavily (usually being given a Performance Rating = 2).
Ingredients Rating: This is my estimate of how problematic the product seems likely to be for the core reader of this website, based solely on its ingredient list. It is based primarily on the Environmental Working Group (EWG) assessments of each included ingredient, with other information also taken into consideration. Here are the rough guidelines.
5 Stars – No substantially problematic ingredients are included. However, these products may contain certain natural ingredients classified by EWG as mildly problematic (score of 3), including titanium dioxide; zinc oxide; tocopheryl acetate; aloe vera; dimethicone and other non-cyclic silicones not containing PEG’s; rosa canina oil; certain essential oils or natural fragrances; certain colorants; grapefruit seed extract; licorice or peppermint extract; hydroxy acids (when included in products intended as exfoliants); and boron oxide.
4 Stars – Some mildly problematic ingredients are included. These products may contain artificial colorings (EWG rating = 7 or below); natural fragrances or essential oils of all kinds; unspecified natural flavor; many preservatives (e.g. phenoxyethanol, chlorophenesin, polysorbates); BHT (if Clean at Sephora = 0.1% of total formula); benzyl alcohol; sodium benzoate; glyceryl behenate; and various other mildly problematic chemicals.
3 Stars – Some moderately problematic ingredients or numerous mildly problematic ingreidents are included. These products may include talc (powder products tested for asbestos or cream products); cyclic silicones; PEG’s; isobutane; SLS; cottonseed oil; petrolatum; BHT (if not Clean at Sephora); unspecified flavor; and other similarly problematic substances.
2 Stars – More problematic ingredients may be included. These may include synthetic fragrance and retinol/retinoids.
1 Star – These products contain especially problematic ingredients and are excluded from discussion on this website (except occasionally in the Trash Can). For instance, these may include parabens; phthalates; aluminum powder; Teflon-type ingredients (e.g. PTFE); powder products containing talc (not tested for asbestos); coloring agents rated as 8-10 by EWG (e.g. Black #2); formaldehyde and formaldehyde releasers; and all chemical sunscreens.
Note: While artificial colors may be integral to the performance of some makeup items, I do not believe that they ever are necessary in skincare products. I therefore have given all skincare products that contain them a maximum Ingredients Rating = 3.
Lisa Irritation Level: If I have had personal problems with skin irritation, smell, taste or other aspects of the product, this is mentioned here. Note that my skin virtually always is slightly irritated by products that include any rose geranium oil or enough mineral sunscreen (titanium dioxide or zinc oxide) to qualify for an SPF rating. Because it seems that almost everyone else tolerates those substances better than I do, I have excluded those reactions when deciding on my performance ratings for products.
Processed Fragrance: If the product contains essential oils, processed botanically derived flavor/scent (such as linalool or vanillin), vanilla extract, or unspecified natural or synthetic fragrance/flavor, those items are listed here. Note that the inclusion of any type of natural fragrance will not in itself prevent a product from being designated as a “Living Clean Superstar.” Rather, because different people react differently to different kinds of scents, products containing natural scents all receive an Ingredients Rating = 4 or 5, unless they also contain other especially problematic ingredients. Products containing synthetic fragrance are automatically given an Ingredients Rating = 2 (or lower).
Problematic Colorings: All included colorings rated as 3 (yellow) or higher on EWG’s toxicity scale are listed here. If carmine (a red coloring agent derived from beetles) is included, that is listed as well.
Silicone Level: Beauty products may contain many different ingredients that consist of silicones or silicone-like substances. I have attempted to list all of these in the “EWG Problem Ingredients” section (even if EWG thinks they are okay) and then to estimate the amount of silicone in the product based on how high on the ingredient list these are mentioned.
Ellen’s Comments: My friend Ellen Kleiman-Redden (who I have known since high school) has tried quite a few of the products listed here and has shared her experiences with them. I think that this is especially valuable since she has different issues than I do (more concern about pores, less concern about dark circles and fine lines in the eye area); a different makeup style (wearing primer, foundation and regular lipstick almost every day); and different sensitivities (bothered especially by vanilla/vanillin and also other scents, but able to tolerate rose geranium oil, titanium dioxide and zinc oxide). In particular, I feel that products that both of us have enjoyed may be especially promising for others, while those that neither of us have liked may be less good bets for mature makeup and skincare users.
Sephora/Credo/Etc. Rating: This the average user rating for the product listed on the mentioned site.
Credo Clean: Products sold by the retailer Credo are listed as “Yes.” Products that do not seem to contain any ingredients listed on Credo’s “Dirty List” are listed as “Meets Criteria.” Other products are listed as “No.”
Clean at Sephora: Products sold by the retailer Sephora under this designation are listed as “Yes.” Products that do not seem to contain any ingredients prohibited by Clean at Sephora are listed as “Meets Criteria.” Other products are listed as “No.”
Drunk Elephant Clean: Drunk Elephant (a skincare brand started by a Texas housewife that was purchased by Shisedo for $845 million in 2019) uses a clean beauty philosophy where ingredients dubbed the Suspicious Six are excluded. These are drying alcohols (such as alcohol denat. or SD alcohol); SLS; fragrances and dyes; essential oils; chemical sunscreens; and silicones. Products that do not include any of these ingredients are marked “Meets Criteria.” Products sold by Drunk Elephant are marked “Yes.” Other products are marked “No.”
EU Compliant: While the European Union bans some cosmetic ingredients that are allowed in the U.S., products containing many of these ingredients (such as parabens and phthalates) have been excluded entirely from discussion on this website. While petroleum and talc often are said to be banned in Europe, petrolatum products such as Vaseline are still sold there and some products containing talc (such as eyeshadows) are still being manufactured by European cosmetic companies and sold in Europe. The issue of what makes a product EU compliant thus is a bit confusing to me. If I feel confident that a product meets EU criteria, I have marked this category as “Meets Criteria.” If I’m uncertain, I have marked this as “Unclear.”
Pregnancy Pick: Most mainstream medical professionals recommend the avoidance of certain chemicals in beauty products for those who are pregnant. These typically include retinol/retinoids (anti-wrinkle and anti-acne drugs); hydroquinone and arbutin (skin-lightening agents); parabens (preservatives with endocrine effects); phthalates (present in synthetic fragrances); salicylic acid (an anti-acne treatment); formaldehyde (used mostly in nail polishes and hair processing products); and chemical sunscreens. Some people also consider it prudent to avoid artificial colorants, essential oils (though some oils are considered safe by most experts), non-organic soy/corn/canola/cottonseed/vegetable oils, benzoyl peroxide, PEG’s, SLS/laureths, talc, and/or other generally problematic ingredients. Products containing some of these ingredients are excluded entirely from this website; the presence of the others is noted in this section. In addition, plastic may expose users to phthalates and other types of containers for beauty products thus may be preferred, especially during pregnancy. Personally, I would likely choose only products with an Ingredients Rating of 5 (noted by a + in the intro section product listings) and then also try to avoid plastic containers if I were pregnant myself. Please note that I am not a medical professional and am only summarizing mainstream medical thought on this issue, not personally guaranteeing the safety of anyone’s baby.
Think Dirty Rating: This is a phone app that provides ratings of many different beauty products based on their ingredient lists. Products are rated as Green (1-3), Yellow (4-6), and Red (7-10). The ratings are for the most part very similar to those of EWG, though occasionally the Think Dirty Ratings will deviate wildly from the EWG ones (and in ways that do not seem to accurately reflect the ingredient lists).
EWG Product Rating: EWG provides specific product ratings for some of the beauty products listed on this site. These may differ from the EWG Ingredients Rating (described below) because an actual human has looked through the listed ingredients and made adjustments to the computer-generated rating. EWG Product Ratings are 1-2 (green), 3-6 (yellow), and 7-10 (red). In addition, in some cases brands have paid money to EWG in order to request that their products be considered for EWG Verified status. Brands that do this may provide extra information to EWG to persuade them that particular listed ingredients that ordinarily are considered problematic should not prevent the product from receiving EWG Verified status. Personally, I have found quite a few products that have received EWG Verified status that nonethless have seemed subjectively problematic to me from a toxicity standpoint, to the point that I no longer pay much attention to that designation. However, when the EWG Product Rating consists of an actual number, I often have found those ratings to be more consistent with my own evaluations of the product (in terms of my concern about ingredients as well as my subjective experiences with it) than is the case with the EWG Ingredients Rating.
EWG Ingredients Rating: This is the rating provided by EWG when I entered the ingredient list for the product into their Build Your Own Report page. These ratings use the same scale as the EWG Product Ratings.
EWG Problem Ingredients: These are all the ingredients in the product that EWG rates as a 3-6 (yellow) or 7-10 (red). Any other ingredients that concern me as well as all essenial oils are listed in parentheses under the “Also contains” designation. Ingredients that I don’t personally have a problem with – such as coconut oil (which can be irritating for some people) or carmine (which is made from beetles) – but that some other people may want to know about are listed here as well. Note that the information on ingredients provided by EWG (a not-for-profit organization) is at the core of this whole project and that I am very grateful to them for having investigated this topic so diligently. I strongly encourage those who find this information helpful to join me in donating money to EWG to support their efforts.
Fragrance Ingredients: This section includes all ingredients that seem to me that they may contribute a significant scent to the product.
All Ingredients: This is the ingredient list supplied by the manufacturer (but in some cases with common rather than botanical names used for easier reading).
Videos: Although I don’t see myself demonstrating products on YouTube, I have personally found watching videos created by others to be super-helpful in deciding which products and shades to purchase. It therefore is my intention to share links to relevant videos for the products listed on this site. In the meantime, those who want to see a particular product being demonstrated may be able to find that by going to a beauty content creator’s YouTube page and typing the product name into the search box. Some of my own favorite YouTube content creators include Michele Wang, Kackie Reviews Beauty, Amanda Z, Hannah Louise Poston, The Lipstick Gal and Britt Witkin. (The latter also has a website of reviews of cleaner beauty products called The Styleshaker.)
Buying Links: If a reader clicks on one of the listed retailer or manufacturer links and then makes a purchase, a small percentage of the proceeds may be directed back to me (with no extra cost incurred by the buyer). I have invested a great deal of time and money into putting this site together, and so I hope that those who find value in it will please click on these links! This will allow me to continue to run the site and to improve on it into the future. Thanks very much to those who support this enterprise by using these links.
Clean Beauty Background
Just over the past couple of years, the “clean beauty” category has (in my observation) really started to come into its own.
Many new companies committed to using cleaner ingredients have entered the market, and many other established companies have introduced new products that are much more free of controversial ingredients than were their old ones.
Although many consumers of beauty products now know that there are certain ingredients that they would like to avoid, others wonder whether the attention being called to ingredients is “fear-mongering” and if they really need to be concerned about this.
Personally, I don’t think that it’s arguable that a high percentage of products sold by conventional beauty companies do contain ingredients that have been amply shown in studies to have the potential of being harmful (e.g. that are “toxic”).
However, toxicology is a complex field and the question of whether these ingredients are present in a high enough dose in particular products to cause harm is in many cases mostly unexplored.
In addition, combinations of ingredients often can be more harmful (but sometimes can be less harmful) than single ingredients, meaning that lab tests looking at single ingredients often do not show true effects.
Another argument that is often made is that even if ingredients have been shown to be toxic, that does not mean that they will cause harm to the user because the skin barrier will keep them out of the system or because they will be easily processed by the detoxification system.
Of relevance to those with mold-related illness conditions (such as ME/CFS, CIRS, MCAS, POTS, chronic Lyme, long Covid, Alzheimer’s and fibromyalgia) is that a large part of what makes exposures to certain kinds of toxic molds such as Stachybotrys so dangerous is that those tend to be particularly good at causing damage to the defense mechanisms of the body and thus can make people much more susceptible to being harmed by other minor toxic exposures of all kinds.
For instance, these kinds of mold toxins seem to be particularly good at damaging the endothelial cells that make up the gut lining and the blood-brain barrier.
In addition, mycotoxins may cause damage to the natural protective microbiome of the human body, an issue that is often discussed with regard to the gut but that also is relevant to the microbiome that is integral in forming the protective barrier of the skin.
It therefore makes a good bit of sense that people with mold-related conditions may be especially sensitive to a wide variety of mildly toxic substances and thus may need to be more careful in terms of avoiding beauty products that contain problematic ingredients.
Those who are pregnant also may want to be especially cautious in choosing cleaner products, since the blood-brain barrier in the fetus is not fully formed and may allow in problematic chemicals that may cause harm to the brain.
Other people who are are not pregnant and who do not have these kinds of health conditions may have more flexibility in terms of which products they use.
Still, since the full effects of ingredients already known to be problematic have not yet been fully explored (and since some substances that are known to be very problematic are still being used in many products), acting conservatively in terms of choosing beauty products containing fewer problematic ingredients is something that many people now have decided to do.
The fact that a large number of cleaner products with really excellent performance have been released just in the past year or two makes using these kinds of products much less of a sacrifice than it used to be (though many of them are still more on the expensive side).
Although not everyone agrees about what should and should not count as “clean beauty,” it’s my feeling at this point (after spending a lot of time looking at the literature and also trying out hundreds of products) that the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has done a quite good job of pointing to ingredients that may be of concern both in terms of their theoretical long-term dangers and their tendency to cause skin irritation.
The EWG ratings thus have been especially important in influencing the product discussions on this site, though other information also has played a role.
Of course, if we are talking about skin sensitivities, people differ a great deal in terms of exactly which specific ingredients may cause them to experience negative reactions.
In addition, people have different needs and wants when it comes to skincare and makeup products, meaning that a product that works really well for me may not be good at all for someone else.
It’s thus been my goal in this project not to try to point to any single product as being “the best,” but rather to give people comprehensive but concise information about a variety of different products so that they can figure out which ones are likely to be best for them personally.
I hope that those who read this website will share their experiences with various products in the comments sections, since that ultimately will make the information available here more helpful to others.
For those who are just learning about “clean beauty” issues, following are a few resources that might be useful in terms of getting up to speed.
Allure – September 15, 2022
CNN – April 25, 2022
Byrdie – November 24, 2021
Cosmopolitan – May 24, 2021
Washington Post – March 11, 2020
Today – January 16, 2018
Not So Pretty – HBO Max Documentary
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