Green Beauty 101: What you need to know

If you’re a skincare aficionado, chances are you’ve come across terms like ‘clean beauty’, ‘green beauty’, and ‘vegan skincare’. Companies are trying to be more sustainable, and consumers are also prioritizing quality products that are natural and organic instead of looking for products with the cheapest prices or with the most colorful packaging.

Brands, customers and beauty gurus tend to use buzzwords like ‘clean’, ‘green’, ‘organic’, ‘natural’, and so on, and the dizzying myriad of terms can sound impressive but get really confusing. What do these terms really mean? Well, the truth is, interpretations differ from brands to brands. Here is Moist Diane’s breakdown of these different terms!

Green vs Clean vs Vegan

Clean beauty aims for products that are safe for consumers, with minimal health risks. These products focus on non-toxic formulas with a focus on transparency, honesty, and ethically-sourced ingredients that may or may not be natural or organic.

Green beauty, however, emphasizes natural ingredients. These products do not contain chemicals, parabens or other harmful toxins you usually see in commercial beauty and skincare products. Such harsh chemicals tend to have negative effects like skin irritation or sensitivity. For example, parabens have been found to be associated with the increase in the development of breast cancer cells¹ and disruptions to menstrual cycles and fertility rates¹.

Green beauty products, in other words, aim to protect, hydrate and nourish your skin with all-natural ingredients.

Aside from natural ingredients, green beauty brands usually try to be more sustainable, making sure that their business practices are socially responsible. This includes sourcing organic ingredients that are grown without toxic fertilizers or pesticides. Sustainability also means reducing the amount of plastic waste from packaging, which can be harmful to marine life, and minimizing the carbon footprint.

And vegan beauty? These products don’t contain any animal-derived products, by-products or derivatives – including honey, beeswax, lanolin, collagen, albumen, carmine, cholesterol and gelatin.

If you’re wondering where to find brands that are in line with these up-and-coming beauty philosophies, look no further.

Diane Be True

There’s no need to compromise on beauty and quality, even as you try to go for greener products that are ethically-sourced.

Diane Be True products are made with 90% natural extracts and upcycled ingredients. You can chase that shine of beautiful, luxurious hair, while taking a step towards a greener future for our Earth.

Be Sustainable

How do we show that we love the Earth? By using sustainable ingredients, and minimizing waste, of course.

One of the ingredients in Diane Be True is the Organic Prickly Pear, which originates from Morocco. Prickly Pear is a type of cacti, and its hard seeds are used to produce oil – the same Organic Cactus Oil used in Diane Be True products. To keep it even more sustainable, the strained residue from the Prickly Pear is used as a fertilizer, so there’s no waste.

The sourced ingredients are also part of the Green Moroccan Plan, an initiative implemented by the Moroccan government to encourage regional economic growth and boost farmers’ income by growing the Prickly Pear.

Even the scent in Diane Be True come from sustainable sources. The lovely floral scent comes from residual Rose Water, an eco-friendly upcycled ingredient without animal testing. This is achieved with extraction from roses after distillation, giving it an aroma that’s more exquisite than the scent of typical roses and will remind you of apricots and honey.

To take things a step further, the bottles are made from 96% recycled plastics to reduce the amount of packaging waste generated.

Loaded with Vegan Keratin

One of the important components of Diane Be True is Vegan Keratin. Your hair and nails are made of keratin, so it makes sense that this is a crucial ingredient in haircare products if you want to repair damage to your hair. A type of protein, Keratin fills in gaps in each hair strand to help hair appear thicker and healthier.

Unfortunately, Keratin used in most products are usually derived from the hooves, feathers, or horns of various animals. That is why Diane Be True uses Vegan Keratin instead. Our products continue to be vegan while strengthening your hair and giving it the protection it needs. By synthesizing amino acids extracted from grains and creating hydrolyzed protein, this produces an alternative to traditional keratin.

Cruelty-free

Many beauty products used to be (and some continue to be) tested on animals. Lab mice or rabbits are used to test if components in products are harmful or toxic. These methods have been widely-contested, especially by environmental activist groups.

On the other side of the spectrum, Diane Be True and other cruelty-free beauty brands turn to non-animal methods of testing. One of which is cell cultures, so the components and products can be tested on human cells in the lab, instead of live animals.

Alternatively, computer models can also be used to conduct virtual experiments using existing data. Data mining tools also help to predict whether a certain ingredient or component might be toxic or harmful to users.

Beyond giving peace of mind to consumers, non-animal testing methods actually offer more accurate results. For example, the infamous Draize skin irritation test on rabbits actually only predicts human skin reactions correctly at a 60% rate. On the other hand, using reconstituted human skin bumps the accuracy up to 86%.

Skin allergy testing on guinea pigs and mice also only have a 72% to 82% accuracy rate, compared to the 90% accuracy when using chemistry and cell-based alternative methods².

The bottom-line

Convinced that you should to give your hair the best care possible, while keeping your promise to the Earth? For the discerning consumer looking for ethically-sourced, green beauty brands, make your next shampoo Diane Be True. There’s no need to compromise on beauty, even when you want to go clean, green and sustainable.

Deciding which Diane Be True product you need? Choose either Smooth Repair Relax or Damage Repair Healthy. For those with frizzy or wavy hair, Smooth Repair Relax has a blend of juicy fruits and veggies to leave you refreshed. And if your concern is damage repair for dry or damaged hair, Damage Repair Healthy has your back. This comes with a fresh, fruity and floral fragrance that contains notes of Basil, Rose and Cypress.