The beauty industry is no stranger to trends. From pro-ageing campaigns to use-at-home LED masks, consumers have seen it all. But one trend that has taken a particularly firm grip over the past decade is the idea of 'natural', or 'organic' beauty.
On the surface, it sounds great. Botanical ingredients, minimal processing and fewer synthetic pesticides. What's not to love? Well, quite a lot as it turns out.
When we think about doing right by the planet, choosing to use a ‘natural’ beauty product might feel like a good idea.
But as the beauty industry faces scrutiny for its environmental toll, it’s time to look beyond the greenwashing and ask whether relying on naturally grown resources for a billion-dollar industry is truly sustainable.
Growing markets
The current global natural and organic beauty industry is experiencing healthy growth driven by increasing consumer demand and is predicted to earn a total revenue of approximately £11.3bn ($14.9bn) in 2025.
In the UK alone, the natural cosmetics sector is planned to reach roughly £210m ($278m) in 2025, with an annual growth rate of approximately 2.74 per cent for the next five years.
From minimal ingredient serums to zero-waste shampoo bars, the variety and volume of products on offer has never been greater. This booming market is exciting, but it’s also creating challenges.
More products means more ingredients being harvested, mined or synthesised, as well as more packaging and emissions being produced at every step along the supply chain.
It’s a complex puzzle and it’s easy for well-intentioned consumers to get caught up in labels like ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ without understanding what those terms really mean.
There’s a perception that if something is ‘natural’, it must be good for the environment. But harvesting natural ingredients, whether it’s argan oil from Morocco, or aloe vera from Mexico, comes at a cost.
Crops require massive amounts of land, water and energy to grow.
Many of these resource-heavy crops are vulnerable to climate change and many are unfortunately subject to unethical labour practices. We like to think of organic farming as a more sustainable method of agriculture, but it can have unintended negative consequences.
For example, many organically farmed ingredients can produce lower crop yields while also using more land. This can contribute to deforestation, as farmers seek more land to maximise the number of slower-growing crops they can produce.
The naturally derived pesticides used in organic farming can also lead to soil damage.
Copper sulfate – often used in the ‘Bordeaux mixture’ in the wine industry – has been cleared for use in organic farming for years and has only recently become regulated due to its negative impact on the soil microbiome and the harm it can cause to local insect populations.
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Lab-grown ingredients
This is where biotechnology comes in. It might not sound as romantic as ‘wild-harvested lavender’, but biotech could be one of the most planet-friendly tools at our disposal.
In simple terms, biotechnology involves using science – often fermentation with yeast, plant sugars or bacteria – to grow ingredients in a lab, rather than harvesting them from nature. Think of it like brewing beer, but instead of getting a pint at the end, you get a powerful active ingredient for a moisturiser or shampoo.
These lab-grown ingredients are molecularly identical to their natural counterparts. They can be made without draining ecosystems, and use far less water, land and energy during their production.
Because the process is so controlled, it can also be scaled up efficiently and with consistent quality – something nature often struggles to deliver.
Replacing that ‘wild-harvested lavender’ with biotech-produced lavender essential oil, for example, would lead to a huge reduction in energy and water consumption.
For 1g (0.04oz) of natural lavender oil, the process uses roughly 20l (approx 5 gallons) of water and around 4 megajoules of energy – roughly the same as watching TV for 20 hours.
When we can produce it via biotechnology, these figures are likely to be closer to 2–5l (0.5–1.3 gallons) of water and 1 megajoule of energy (about the same amount it takes to boil the kettle.
While biotech has progressed significantly in the past few years, companies haven’t yet been able to produce all the components that make up this unique essential oil.
An ingredient they have been able to reproduce is bisabolol – one of the cosmetic industry’s most effective ingredients for anti-redness and soothing properties. It’s used in a variety of applications, from menopausal- and hormonal-related creams to after sun care and baby products.
To obtain natural bisabolol, you need to extract it from the candeia tree, which is native to Brazil. This harvesting contributes to deforestation, biodiversity loss and ecosystem strain, not to mention that natural harvests vary in quality from year to year depending on weather conditions.
Obtaining 1kg (2.2lbs) of natural bisabolol would require around 1–3 trees to be cut down, but each one takes 10–15 years to grow and reach maturity.
To make 1 tonne (2,204lbs) of bisabolol, you’d need around 3,000–5,000 trees, which is truly staggering when the global use of this material is around 16 tonnes (35,000lbs) per year.
Each tree is said to use approximately 36,000l (9,500 gallons) of water over its lifetime (equivalent to 72,000 500ml bottles), as well as 75 megajoules of energy (about the same as charging a smartphone 2,500 times).
Givaudan, a Swiss ingredient manufacturer, has already managed to produce bisabolol through biotechnology to a much higher specification than natural farming could.
Comparing a biotech yield against the natural candeia tree yield, the same quantity of bisabolol can be produced while using 90–95-per-cent less water and 50–60-per-cent less energy, not to mention the hectares of land saved from deforestation.
Companies like Boots and Estée Lauder are investing in biotech.
Even smaller indie brands are starting to shout about their fermented or lab-grown ingredients. Eco-brand Biossance, for example, uses a moisturising ingredient similar to squalene in its products.
While squalene is harvested from shark fins, Biossance derives the similar ingredient squalane from sugarcane, and together with its parent company Amyris, claims to save an estimated 2–3 million sharks a year by using the biotech ingredient.
Biotech ingredients can also be purer, more stable and even more effective than their natural equivalents. That means your products will last longer, work better and carry less environmental guilt.
What to look for
For consumers, all of this can feel overwhelming, especially when packaging is still filled with misleading marketing buzzwords. But there are a few simple things to keep in mind when choosing cosmetics that align with your values:
- Look for biotech or lab-grown ingredients. These are often listed as 'fermentation-derived', 'bio-designed' or 'bio-identical' on the ingredient list.
- Look out for common marketing greenwashing claims such as 'eco-friendly', 'clean beauty', 'chemical-free', 'sustainable' or 'biodegradable'. Look for actual values, timelines or explanations behind these claims.
- Avoid brands that shift the focus from sustainability to something else such as 'against animal testing'. Animal testing was banned for the purpose of cosmetics in the UK in 1998 and by the EU in 2009.
The idea that beauty should be ‘natural’ is comforting, but it’s not always the most sustainable choice, especially since, in the UK, there’s no legal definition of what constitutes a ‘natural’ cosmetic.
If we want to protect the planet and future generations, we need to move past the idea that nature is endlessly bountiful and start supporting smarter science that works with nature, not against it.
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