Since its inception, “clean beauty” was a marketing term — loosely defined, inconsistently applied, and almost entirely unregulated. Brands could self-declare, consumers had little way to verify claims, and the word “clean” meant something different depending on who was using it. That era is ending. What is replacing it is not a single global regulation, but something more influential in day-to-day formulation practice: a patchwork of retailer-led frameworks and cross-industry coalitions that are, together, creating credible standards — and raising the bar continuously.
For formulators, this shift is worth considering. Getting a product onto a Credo shelf, a Whole Foods aisle, or a Sephora clean-labelled sticker now requires active compliance work — not just good intentions. Here is what each major framework actually demands.
Credo Beauty: A Pioneer in Clean Beauty Retail
Founded in 2014, Credo Beauty positioned itself from the outset as a standards-setter, not just a retailer. Its Dirty List® restricts over 2,700 ingredients— a figure that goes beyond legal requirements in any jurisdiction, incorporating not just toxicological concerns but sustainability, ethical sourcing, and precautionary exclusions where safety data remains incomplete.
Key exclusions include ethoxylated compounds, silicones of concern, most synthetic fragrances (phthalates, nitromusks, etc.), and — notably — talc. The framework also extends well beyond the formula itself: brands must demonstrate ethical sourcing, hold credible third-party certifications where relevant, and be prepared to account for their carbon footprint and humane supply chain validation for animal derivatives. Even palm oil and palm kernel oil derivatives need to be from a responsible supply chain. For a formulator, Credo compliance is a significant design constraint from day one as pre-screening is essential.
Whole Foods Market: Beyond Clean Beauty
Whole Foods was arguably the first major retailer to take ingredient gatekeeping seriously, introducing banned ingredient lists for personal care products over a decade ago. Its current “Beyond Clean Beauty” standard excludes more than 240 ingredients, encompassing parabens, phthalates, PFAS, formaldehyde releasers, EDTA, Hydroquinone and a range of animal derivatives on ethical grounds (emu oil, equine oil, human placental protein).
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What distinguishes Whole Foods from some retailer frameworks is its stance on organic claims: any product making an organic claim must hold third-party certification through either the USDA National Organic Standards or NSF/ANSI 305 for organic personal care products. This closes a common loophole where brands use the word “organic” loosely without substantiation.
Clean at Sephora: Clean Beauty With Global Reach
Launched in 2018, Clean at Sephora is the most visible clean beauty programme in terms of market reach. The core programme bans over 50 ingredients including families of ingredients (among which are Parabens, Formaldehyde releasers, Hydroquinone and Phthalates).
A significant evolution came in 2022 with the addition of Clean + Planet Positive — a sustainability overlay covering climate commitment, sustainable sourcing, responsible packaging, and environmental giving. The programme now spans formulation, supply chain, and physical packaging in an integrated way — a model other retailers are likely to follow.
Beyond its retail programmes, Sephora has a longstanding record of industry-level engagement on ingredient safety: it has participated in the development of the Beauty and Personal Care Product Safety Rating System since 2015, joined the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council (now Change Chemistry) in 2018, and in 2021 its parent company LVMH joined the EcoBeautyScore Consortium, which is developing an environmental impact scoring system for cosmetic products across 70 industry partners.
ChemForward and Know Better, Do Better: The multistakeholder coalition
The most interesting development in clean beauty standards is coming from a coalition. The Know Better, Do Better (KBDB) Collaborative, led by non-profit ChemForward and including Sephora, Ulta Beauty, Credo Beauty, Beautycounter, The Honest Company, Dow, Inolex, and the Environmental Defense Fund, represents a fundamental shift in how ingredient safety is assessed. Rather than relying on negative or restricted lists, KBDB uses a Chemical Hazard Data Trust to build science-based hazard characterisation across the entire ingredient landscape.
Unlike the retailer frameworks, KBDB has no consumer-facing interface and publishes no public banned list. It operates entirely behind the scenes — influencing how member organisations assess, source, and substitute ingredients within their own supply chains. The hazard characterisation data sits in a proprietary repository: to access it, organisations must become members of the collaborative. For formulators working outside that membership structure, the data is not directly accessible.
What this means in practice is that KBDB functions as an upstream influence on the standards that do reach formulators — through the retailers and brands in the coalition. When Credo updates its Dirty List, when Sephora revises its high-priority chemicals policy, or when an ingredient supplier like Inolex or Dow decides to reformulate or discontinue a material, the hazard characterisation work done within KBDB is part of what informs those decisions. The mechanism is indirect but still effective.
It is also worth being clear about what KBDB does not replace: the negative lists of the retailers within the coalition still apply in full. Credo’s Dirty List, Sephora’s Formulated Without list, and Ulta’s Made Without list remain the operative compliance requirements for brands seeking shelf space. KBDB sits above those lists as a science infrastructure layer — shaping what may end up on future restricted lists, not substituting for the ones that exist today.
What This Means in Practice
The clean beauty landscape is no longer a question of whether a brand chooses to engage with it — retailer frameworks have made compliance a commercial necessity for any brand seeking meaningful distribution. And its direction is clear: criteria are expanding from ingredient exclusion lists to encompass sustainability, packaging, supply chain ethics, and now proactive safety science.
For formulators, this means it is vital to keep up to date with these lists that are in constant evolution. UL Prospector Premium account can assist formulators to keep up to date with retailers list as well as general regulatory updates.
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