The top beauty brands for clean and sustainable make-up

Beauty products are, all too often, packed full of ingredients that have no business touching our hair and skin. After successfully transforming my skin by using clean beauty products, I no longer wanted to cover my face with formulas filled with questionable ingredients.

I love the idea of skincare-infused makeup, which includes elements to enhance your skin, rather than mask it. Many of the brands out there today practicing transparency with their ingredients are doing the same when it comes to sustainability. The best products are harm-free for both you and the environment.

Here’s our round up of the best:

Make-up artist to the stars (and our very own Vogue Scandinavia Beauty Expert) Gucci Westman’s brand, Westman Atelier, offers luxuriously creamy and dewy products to create her signature ‘second skin’ look. Dedicated to clean beauty, many of the products include enriching ingredients like caper extract and camellia seed oil, and do away with harmful ones such as parabens and mercury. This approach extends to recycled packaging, recyclable materials, and – very soon – refillable containers. Bestsellers include the Vital Skin Foundation Stick and Eye Pods Eye Shadow, the unique Lip Suede Lip Palettes and (my personal favourite) the Super Loaded Tinted Highlight.

La Bouche Rouge is a socially aware brand with a seven-part mission: to ‘affirm aesthetic practicality, aspire refillable design, embrace a certain Parisian elegance, discard excessive promises, celebrate French craftsmanship, experience luxury through sustainability, and engage in a socially responsible act’. Quite the tall order. But La Bouche Rouge manages it with products that are eco-friendly, clean and refillable. The focus is on minimalist but elegant essentials, including lip pencils, eyeshadows, my favourite La Lumière Highlighter and a large range of lipstick shades to choose from for all skin tones. My top shades are the Nude Red and Self-Service Satin.

Milk Makeup is a 100 per cent vegan beauty brand with a focus on sustainability. Their products are free from animal products and by-products, as well as a host of unsafe ingredients and allergens such as gluten, mercury, preservatives, phthalates, and solvents. For buildable coverage and extra protection, opt for the Sunshine Skin Tint Broad Spectrum SPF 30 Sunscreen. Signature items also include the Hydro Grip Primer, Kush Triple Brow Pen and the Lip + Cheek colour stick.

RMS Beauty is a line ‘dedicated to transforming the way women use makeup’ by creating products that are not only non-toxic, but that actually heal and nourish the skin. Ingredients are raw, food-grade and organic. Their bestsellers include my personal go-to, the ‘Un’ Cover-Up concealer and foundation, Lip2Cheek Glow Quad Mini and Buriti Bronzer.

After discovering that her chosen lip balm was loaded with unsafe ingredients, Ilia founder Sasha Plavsic set out to create a better product that was effective and natural. Ilia strives to create ‘radical beauty – the kind that pushes boundaries, that believes in better’ by offering products that merge skincare and makeup for a glowing complexion. Try the Super Serum Skin Tint SPF 40, the Cheek + Lip On-The-Go Multi-Stick, The Necessary Eyeshadow Palette and the Clean Line Gel Liner.

Tata Harper is first and foremost a green beauty brand with really powerful formulas. They have added an array of tinted skincare to their line of products, all of which are 100 per cent natural and live up to the founder’s high standard of efficacy, quality, and purity. Tata Harper boasts an impressive lineup of certifications: they’re cruelty free, vegetarian, rainforest-friendly and recyclable. Bestsellers include the BE ADORED Tinted Anti-Aging Neuropeptide Lip Treatment for a nourishing lip balm with subtle tint, Vitamin-Infused Cream Blush (FLASHY functions as the perfect highlighter and SPICY is the perfect everyday blush tone), Illuminating Eye Crème and Illuminating Moisturizer. I personally love the idea of a moisturiser that gives my face a makeup finish, reducing the need to use foundation.