In the language of modern beauty, few words are as persuasive, or as slippery, as natural. It appears on packaging in soft fonts, often paired with images of leaves, blossoms, or flowing water. It suggests gentleness. Cleanliness. Moral correctness. For many consumers, that’s enough. But in practice, “natural” means almost nothing.
Unlike the term organic, which in most countries is bound by strict regulatory standards, natural remains legally undefined in the cosmetics industry. A product can contain synthetic preservatives, petrochemical derivatives, or artificial fragrance compounds and still be labeled natural, so long as a handful of its ingredients can be traced, however distantly, to a plant. This lack of clarity is a feature of the system: a space in which branding can flourish unbothered by oversight, and where consumer perception is shaped more by tone and texture than by content.
That gap between language and reality has created fertile ground for greenwashing. A 2023 investigation published by the National Law Review found that over 70% of personal care products labeled “natural” contained synthetic ingredients, including artificial stabilizers and preservatives (Hanssen, 2023). These weren’t exceptions. They were the norm. And even in formulas that lean botanical, natural doesn’t always mean benign. Essential oils, so often treated as proof of purity, are actually one of the leading causes of allergic contact dermatitis in cosmetic users. A 2021 review published in Cosmetics highlighted how ingredients like citrus and lavender oil, commonly found in clean formulations, can trigger irritation, allergic reactions, and even photosensitivity under sun exposure (Guzmán & Lucia, 2021).
Still, the story goes largely untold. Clean beauty has been framed as a rejection of the chemical and the artificial, a return to something ancestral, even sacred. In its best expressions, this movement has pushed the industry toward transparency, better ingredient sourcing, and formulations free from unnecessary irritants. But it has also turned natural into a proxy word for safe, ethical, and sustainable, despite the fact that many of the most celebrated plant-based ingredients come with steep environmental and human costs.
The Environmental and Human Cost of “Clean”
Palm oil is a case in point. It appears in everything from lipsticks to moisturizers to shampoo bars labeled as sustainable or eco-friendly. Its production, however, has been a primary driver of rainforest destruction in Indonesia and Malaysia, where land is routinely cleared through slash-and-burn methods that release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere (Ritchie, 2021). Similarly, natural ingredients like sandalwood and frankincense, prized for their fragrance, have become so heavily harvested that their wild populations are now threatened. What was once marketed as an ethical alternative has become a key pressure point on already fragile ecosystems.
And then there is the question of labor. Natural beauty often conjures images of hand-harvested ingredients and small-scale farming, but the reality on the ground is more complicated. Shea butter, cocoa butter, and mica, all of which feature prominently in clean beauty formulas, are frequently sourced from regions where labor laws are weakly enforced. Investigations in India and West Africa have linked mica mining and shea processing to exploitative practices, including child labor, low wages, and unsafe working conditions (Al Jazeera, 2021). Ethical certifications exist, but in a market saturated with vague language, most consumers have no clear way of knowing how, or by whom, their products were made.
Even in cases where ingredients are responsibly harvested, natural doesn’t always scale well. The production of almond oil, for example, requires vast amounts of water, far more, in many cases, than the creation of comparable synthetic emollients. According to a 2022 study in Sustainable Production and Consumption, plant-based cosmetic ingredients often carry significant water and agricultural footprints, sometimes exceeding those of their lab-made counterparts (Aguiar et al., 2022). Other natural ingredients, such as rose or neroli essential oils, require thousands of blossoms for a single ounce, an inefficiency that clashes with the minimalist, earth-friendly image these products are meant to project.
The issue isn’t simply that natural ingredients can be wasteful or overharvested. It’s that the term natural implies a kind of inherent sustainability that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. A lab-grown compound can, in some cases, be not only more consistent and effective but more sustainable, requiring less land, less water, and fewer transportation emissions. And yet, synthetic ingredients continue to be treated with suspicion by large swaths of the “clean” beauty market, even when they’ve been thoroughly tested and refined.
Reframing the Conversation Around Safety and Sustainability
Preservatives are one of the most contested elements in modern skincare, and for good reason. Synthetic additives like parabens, phenoxyethanol, and formaldehyde-releasing compounds were introduced to solve a problem of shelf stability, not to protect the user. While they extend product life and suppress microbial growth, they also introduce well-documented risks: endocrine disruption, skin irritation, and environmental persistence, among other. These preservatives were designed for industrial-scale manufacturing, not for human or ecological health. And yet, they remain common, even in products labeled as gentle or “green.”
There are better ways forward. Botanical preservation systems, such as fermented radish root filtrate, willow bark extract, and certain essential oil distillates, offer milder antimicrobial protection when used thoughtfully. And some brands are sidestepping the problem entirely by rethinking the product format. Water-free formulations like cleansing powders, shampoo bars, and concentrated balms can be stored safely without preservatives at all. By removing water (the main source of microbial vulnerability) these products eliminate the need for chemical intervention while dramatically reducing packaging and shipping weight. The solution isn’t to bring back questionable synthetics in the name of safety. It’s to redesign products that don’t need them in the first place.
Consumers trying to navigate this terrain face a frustrating dilemma: a beauty landscape filled with vague claims, contradictory messages, and little regulation. Even well-intentioned shoppers may find themselves choosing products that are less safe, less sustainable, and less effective, all because of how a word like natural makes them feel. The clean beauty movement has succeeded in pushing the industry to be more conscious, but it has also given rise to a new kind of mythology, one that privileges aesthetics over accuracy.
The more useful question, perhaps, is not whether an ingredient is natural or synthetic, but whether it is necessary, safe, and responsibly sourced. That means reading ingredient labels instead of front-facing claims. It means supporting brands that prioritize both transparency and thoughtful formulation. It means considering the environmental and social footprint of an ingredient’s production, not just its origin.
Natural beauty can be ethical. It can be effective. But it doesn’t earn those qualities simply by being plant-based. Without accountability, the word natural becomes just another marketing tool: attractive, reassuring, but ultimately hollow.
References:
“India Child Labour.” Www.aljazeera.com, www.aljazeera.com/features/2014/9/21/ugly-truth-behind-global-beauty-industry, 2021.
Guzmán, Eduardo & Lucia, Alejandro. (2021). Essential Oils and Their Individual Components in Cosmetic Products. Cosmetics. 8. 114. 10.3390/cosmetics8040114.
Ritchie Hannah (2021) - “Drivers of Deforestation” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation' [Online Resource]
Hanssen, William A. “Natural Cosmetics: Products without a Clear Definition.” Legal News & Business Law News, National Law Review, 25 Aug. 2023, natlawreview.com/article/natural-cosmetics-products-without-clear-definition.
