Why does shopping for beauty products sometimes feel like the wild west? Do you ever pick up a product with a bunch of labels slapped on it and ingredients you can’t even pronounce and think “what the heck does this all mean?!” Is it actually clean? And if a skincare line is clean, does that mean the company doesn’t test on animals?

Decoding what’s in your favorite cosmetics can be confusing at best, so let’s break it down bit and unpack what clean beauty, cruelty-free, and vegan really mean.

Clean beauty
Clean beauty is the umbrella term to describe products that contain natural ingredients and are devoid of harmful chemicals, including parabens, phthalates, sulfates, and synthetic fragrances. Clean beauty, however, does not require the ingredients to be vegan or plant-based if they are ethically sourced and safe to use on skin. And here’s a (not so) fun fact, the FDA has yet to define or regulate clean beauty, so each brand is able to define the term in their own way. In fact, the FDA has only banned 11 additives from our cosmetics beauty products, whereas the EU has banned a whopping 1,328. God bless America!

As a result of these blasé regulations, brands can sometimes use marketing buzzwords such as “eco-friendly,” “nontoxic,” and “natural” to catch a customer’s eye, and these can sometimes be misleading. For example, a product would be considered natural even if it contains literally 1% of naturally sourced, plant-based, or mineral ingredients.

Cruelty-free
Cruelty-free means the products and ingredients have not been tested on animals. Interestingly, most animal testing occurs at the ingredient level and not the product itself.

The good news is that neither the FDA or the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission require animal testing for cosmetics or household products. The bad news (and we hate to be the Debbie downer) is that there is currently no regulation in the United States and Canada for the term “cruelty-free.”

Looking for a Leaping Bunny Certification is an excellent way to ensure that no animal testing has been conducted in any phase of product development by the company, its laboratories, or ingredient suppliers. PETA’s Beauty Without Bunnies Program also has a massive database of every registered company that is either cruelty-free or both vegan and cruelty-free and has the logos to back it up.

Vegan
Vegan beauty products are made without any animal by-products or animal-derived ingredients, such as gelatin, squalene, lanolin, or collagen. The term “vegan beauty” tends to be synonymous with plant based.

Ironically, a cruelty-free product can technically not be vegan, and a vegan product can technically not be cruelty-free. And it’s also worth noting that just because a brand is cruelty-free and vegan, doesn’t necessarily mean their products are better for you. They can still use synthetic ingredients made from a laboratory. (Is your head spinning yet?)

Clearly the waters can be a bit murky when it comes to clean beauty, but thankfully, as more and more brands become cruelty-free and vegan, it does seem that this new clean beauty wave is here to stay.