Beauty advocates and friends, Charlie McIntosh and Zoe Bulgin created Found Clean Beauty to tackle the confusion and lack of transparency in the industry. Frustrated by misleading claims and ever-changing regulations, they set out to make truly clean beauty accessible. Let’s find out more about what inspired them to develop Found Clean Beauty:

What motivated you to establish Found Clean Beauty, and how has your personal journey influenced the brand’s mission?

Charlie: After a stage 3 cancer diagnosis in my mid-forties, I decided I needed to rethink the way I treated my body. When thinking about a healthy lifestyle, we tend to think about ensuring we get enough exercise and sleep, as well as reducing stress and ultra-processed food in our diet, which are all so important. But looking to reduce our body’s toxic burden (the amount of environmental toxins our bodies take in) can also be really beneficial to our health. Our skincare, hair products and makeup all contribute to our toxic load. Once I started researching the ingredients that went into the products I was using, I was absolutely horrified and set about researching to find toxin-free alternatives for myself & my family. This was the beginning of Found Clean Beauty.

Can you elaborate on your screening process for selecting products? How does it differ from other retailers’ standards?

Zoe: Rather than taking what we’re told is “clean” at face value, we have created our own vigorous screening process that looks at every single ingredient in every product we stock. We screen on a product level not a brand level. We check against over 150 different chemicals that we deem unsafe based on current scientific research.

Before we even launched the website we spent over 2 years researching the beauty industry and the ingredients used. We first went to the source and read white papers and published scientific testing reports on ingredients. We also looked at cancer research blogs and articles, and websites such as The EWG and Campaign for Safe Cosmetics in association with the breast cancer prevention partners. As well as the latest research from the Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) advise the UK Office for Product Safety and Standards and research coming from the European Commission. Our research didn’t stop there; it is ongoing, we keep up to date with new research on cosmetic ingredients and any updates to legislation.

Unlike other retailers, we won’t compromise on controversial ingredients and lean on the side of caution on certain ingredients such as Titanium Dioxide and Aluminium until further research is done, which means we have a smaller offering, however, you can have confidence that whatever we stock is the absolute best in class for clean beauty products.

How do you address the challenge of “clean-washing” in the beauty industry to maintain transparency with your customers?

Charlie: So many beauty terms are completely unregulated, such as ‘Clean’,’Green’ and ‘Natural’ It can be really hard to navigate and it’s the reason we started the brand in the first place, to help take the guesswork out of choosing clean beauty. You’ll often see labels showing what is not included in the ingredient list, which is great as a guide. However, we are also interested in what is in the ingredients list as many times, a commonly known toxin has been removed but contains other ingredients that can be just as harmful.

In what ways do you educate consumers about the potential risks associated with certain beauty products, especially those targeting specific demographics?

Charlie: A big part of our mission is to help educate people, not scaremongering but enabling them to make informed decisions for themselves without having to do tons of research. You shouldn’t have to be a scientist to understand the biological effects of some of these ingredients! People turn to toxin-free living for lots of different reasons, fertility issues, illness or often it’s just wanting to reduce the amount of toxins that the whole family encounter every day through products like body wash, shampoo and hand soap. I’m always particularly mindful of endocrine disruptors for my teenage daughters who love skincare and makeup.

We have a ‘No-Go Ingredients’ page on our website that helps to educate and empower consumers about certain ingredients and their health risks. We sort our no-go ingredients by what the health concerns are, rather than just a huge list of chemicals to help people understand a bit better what & why we exclude them.

What criteria do you use to define “clean beauty,” and how do you ensure your products align with this definition?

Zoe: Clean Beauty is a beauty and skincare products that avoid using known harmful chemicals in their formulation.
This mustn’t be confused with terms like ‘natural’ or ‘chemical free’ (everything is a chemical, even water). Some synthetic ingredients can be really toxic, whilst others can actually be very stable and safe. Similarly, there are lots of natural ingredients that can be toxic, whilst others are completely safe. So, we always rely on the scientific research to guide us.

How do you balance the use of natural ingredients with the need for product efficacy and shelf stability?

Zoe: The frustrating thing is that most of the problematic ingredients that go into beauty products are preservatives and fragrance, not the actual active ingredients. Science has come along in leaps and bounds and the toxin-free alternatives to these things are just as effective, so we see comparable shelf lives for most products these days whilst maintaining the same excellent results.

What role does sustainability play in your product selection, particularly concerning packaging and sourcing practices?

Charlie: Whilst sustainability is really important to us, we are realistic about how much work the beauty industry as a whole needs to do to be better for the environment. We do want to be a change for good and do what we can, for example, all of our packaging is 100% recyclable. Luckily the cleaner brands we stock tend to lean towards much better practices with regards to cruelty-free and sustainability, for example, we sell a makeup brand called Oceanly and all their packaging is completely made of paper. We are also really aware of how many toxins in beauty products are washed down the drain into our waterways and environments, so choosing clean formulations vastly reduces that impact.

How do you navigate the regulatory landscape of clean beauty, given the varying standards across different regions?

Zoe: It’s fairly easy for us because we are so much more conservative than the regulations, we would like to see them go further! Unfortunately, the regulations around ingredients don’t consider the cumulative effect of being exposed to the same problematic ingredient many times throughout a day and over a period or the cocktail effect when multiple toxins are used in the same product.

How do you see the clean beauty market evolving in the next five years, and what role do you envision for Found Clean Beauty in that landscape?

Charlie: Clean beauty is very much here to stay as consumers become more aware of the ingredients and what they are putting on their skin. We are slowly seeing the landscape change with quite a few brands starting to slowly illuminate certain ingredients from new formulations which is encouraging. There’s a long way to go though and consumer behaviour is the main thing that will drive change and get the industry to clean up their act. There are safe alternatives for almost all toxic ingredients, it just costs the manufacturers money to implement. We hope Found Clean Beauty can be a driving force in pushing brands to choose these safer alternatives for the benefit of their customers.

What strategies do you employ to stay ahead of emerging trends and innovations within the clean beauty sector? 

Zoe: We try and walk our path. We’ve had lovely feedback from customers saying how much they appreciate us doing the research for them taking away the guesswork and confusion, so our priority is to continue to catering focus on this. We try to have a broad range of products to suit every budget, clean beauty shouldn’t be prohibitive, so we have high-end skincare through to £4 deodorants and everything in between. We are always on the lookout to showcase innovative new products that push the clean beauty industry forward and prove clean can mean highly effective.

How do you measure the impact of your brand on promoting healthier beauty choices among consumers?

Charlie: Well, we’re still a new business, but already the best impact we’re seeing is the lovely feedback we get form customers who for whatever personal reason, are on their journey of trying to buy more toxin-free products and it’s great to know we’re the go-to option for people who all live very busy lives. We’re also building a lovely community of amazing people who have similar missions to ours, which is inspiring.

W: Found Clean Beauty