10 Eco-friendly Makeup Companies You Need to Know About

I usually don’t write those types of headlines. Not only do they sound “clickbait-ish”, but the article topic is also related to makeup. Two reasons why I usually stay away from publishing such articles. However, I noticed that a lot of companies have started to focus on producing and offering eco-friendly makeup. As I am a big fan of companies offering products and services that do not harm the environment, I felt that this article was needed.

Quite a lot of research and help from a female friend (she is vegan, by the way) were needed to form this article.

Table of Contents

• The full list of eco-friendly makeup brands (in case you have bad time)
• 10 companies that sell environmentally friendly makeup
• W3LL PEOPLE
• Real Purity
• Hush + Dotti
• Kjaer Weis (“Kjær Weis” in Danish…)
• Keeping it natural
• Jane Iredale
• Tarte
• Juice Beauty
• Korres
• Where to buy eco-friendly makeup online?
• How can you figure out if a makeup brand really is eco-friendly?

The full list of eco-friendly makeup brands (in case you have bad time)

1. W3LL PEOPLE
2. Real Purity
3. Hust + Dotti
4. Kjaer Weis
5. Keeping it natural
6. Jane Iredale
7. Tarte
8. Juice Beauty
9. Korres
10. NYX

PS! I have also added some product recommendations to every brand. The products have been carefully handpicked from the makeup artist, which means that they are all of high quality. 🙂

10 companies that sell environmentally friendly makeup

Let us start.

W3LL PEOPLE

Sell mainly: All types of makeup that will cover your eyes, cheeks, lips and eyelids. In addition to that, they do sell a small range of t-shirts and makeup bags.

Why are they eco-friendly & ethical?

1) 100 % cruelty-free makeup.
2) A lot of their product range is vegan.
3) All products (currently) sold on their website are made in the USA.

General comments:

Despite selling environmentally friendly makeup, W3LL PEOPLE actually market themselves as more of a high-quality brand. Thumbs up. Just because you offer vegan makeup does not mean that you have to use words such as “eco-friendly”, “vegan” and “natural” in every advertisement. W3LL PEOPLE offer a wide range of affordable makeup products.

PS! I checked upon a lot of the different review sites that can be found out there and it seemed like people have a pretty good impression of them. If you live in the USA, you will probably get your makeup shipped to your home address within a couple of days.

Link: 

Their products can be found by clicking here. A lot of good W3LL PEOPLE products on Amazon!

Real Purity

Sell mainly: All types of cosmetics + skin care products.

Why are they eco-friendly & ethical?

1) All natural ingredients.
2) Cruelty-free.
3) Despite having a very big product range, a lot of their products are vegan. After scrolling through different makeup, I would say that about 1/5 of all products are vegan.
4) None of the products sold on Real Purity contains GMO.

General comments:

Real Purity was founded back in 1986. This is one of the US companies with the longest track-record of selling eco-friendly makeup both offline and online. More than 70 % of their online customers are located in the US*, which makes it their number 1 market. I know that Amazon are called “the everything store”. But if you really want everything within environmentally friendly skincare and makeup, I guess Real Purity is the natural choice.

Two things are highlighted when you click the “Read About Us” tab on their website:

customer care and an emphasis on quality. Enough said.

Link:

Click here to see the Real Purity products on Amazon.

Hush + Dotti

Sell mainly: Skincare and makeup.

Why are they eco-friendly & ethical?

1) Made in the USA.
2) A lot of vegan products.
3) Cruelty-free.
4) All their packaging is recyclable.
5) According to what they write, they try to use less packaging to all their products. I really tried to find a picture of how that looks like on both Pinterest and Instagram, but all the influencers apparently did not see the value in showing me their packaging – only the products.

Let us just believe them.

General comments:

Hush + Dotti got an excellent slogan: “Non Toxic Beauty”. In addition to that, they got an excellent and user-friendly web shop.

Their product range is pretty straight forward. Standard makeup for face, neck and eyes – and a lot of organic skincare products to choose from. As they really highlight being environmentally friendly, it really becomes an important part of their brand identity.

Link:

I could not find any Hush + Dotti products on Amazon, so the only place I found them was on their own website hushdotti.com.

Kjaer Weis (“Kjær Weis” in Danish…)

Sell mainly: All makeup products. Literally – you can find “anything” on their website.

Why are they eco-friendly & ethical?

1) None of their products have been tested on animals.
2) They are a part of the “zero waste movement”
3) All organic materials used in their makeup.

General comments:

One thing that really strike me about the Kjaer Weis products is the colors they use. So fresh! It is like stepping into a beautiful Japanese garden of makeup!

One great detail is their use of stainless steel. You might not know it, but stainless steel has a recycle rate of 100 %. In other words: this is a great example of how they try to become “zero waste”. Not only as a company, but also for their consumers.

Link:

Find the products in the Kjaer Weis page on Amazon.

Keeping it natural

Sell mainly: Mascara, blushes and eyeshadows.

Why are they eco-friendly & ethical?

1) All products are organic.
2) Their packaging is fully created with eco-friendliness in mind.

General comments:

The name says it all. Organic products that are shipped in non-plastic containers. Frankly, I have not tried this brand myself. As you might understand, it is quite of a small niche brand with a quite limited product range.

They absolutely deserve a place on this list as they are super environmentally friendly. However, I cannot guarantee the quality of their products.

Link:

Keepingitnaturalbodycare.com – the only place I could find their products…

Jane Iredale

Sell mainly: Skin products. BB Cream and skin care.

Why are they eco-friendly & ethical?

1) Using natural/organic ingredients in their makeup.
2) All packing comes from recycled materials.

General comments:

Jane Iredale products are made purely to make your skin look good. They offer a wide range of products that help broken skin to gradually improve. However, they also sell a lot of makeup to cover bad skin. All products are cruelty-free certified by PETA.

Many review websites have a lot of good information when you are buying makeup. And based on what I can read about Jane Iredale, this seems like a great brand that most people are happy with. Many people have added YouTube videos of themselves trying out Iredale makeup. For me, this is the very best way to figure out the effect of a makeup type.

None of the YouTube videos I saw do highlight the fact that they are environmentally friendly. However, this just seems to be a bonus as most people are talking about Jane Iredale delivering high quality makeup.

Link:

Of course you can find the full Jane Iredale product range on Amazon…

Tarte

Sell mainly: All kind of makeup. To the whole world.

Why are they eco-friendly & ethical?

– Using plant extracts and vegetables in their makeup (sounds weird, but it works!)
– Environmentally friendly packaging.
– Their makeup comes without parabens, gluten and other chemicals.

General comments:

As I was doing research to this article, I found out that a lot of bloggers recommended Tarte. I don’t know if that is because Tarte send free products to a lot of bloggers and get a good review in exchange? That might be. But regardless of that, I got a quite good impression of them as I kept reading reviews and information on their website.

Link:

Look at Tarte`s product range and updated prices here.

Juice Beauty

Very few people have heard about Juice Beauty. However, it’s quite a hidden treasure…

Sell mainly:

All kinds of cosmetics. Honestly, I struggled to find something they did not sell…

That being said, their most famous product range contains products aimed at women in their 40’s and 50’s. There are a lot of anti-age products being sold by this company.

Why are they eco-friendly & ethical?

– No products tested on animals.
– Use very little toxic ingredients in their products.
– Juice Beauty use a lot of high quality and natural ingredients in their products.

General comments:

Superb brand. Top notch.

Link:

Juice Beauty products are (very) affordable and can be found on Amazon here.

Korres

Sell mainly: Skin care products, shampoos, bath gel, Suncare products, perfume.

Why are they eco-friendly & ethical?

1) Supporting local communities.
2) Using clean products that are not tested on animals.
3) Natural products.

General comments:

Let me (the website owner) quickly step in here. There are not many beauty brands that I know the name of, but Korres is one of them. They simply make some amazing shower gel that can be used by both men and women. I remember living in Amsterdam and walking past a shop that I simply had to step into due to the fantastic smell. Turns out it was a store that only sold Korres products!

When I started to read more about the products, it turned out that Korres have been supporting local farmers in third world countries and used eco-friendly products in order to leave the environmental footprint as small as possible. Thumbs up!

Small funfact about Korres:

They stopped producing their products in China due to concerns about animal testing.

Link:

If you want to browse through the good-smelling Korres products, please click on this link.

Where to buy eco-friendly makeup online?

Amazon is an excellent place to start. After getting this article back from my friend, I immediately started to type in each name into the Amazon search engine. And guess what? They almost had them all. As Amazon offer international shipping and competitive pricing, I struggle to mention a better place to buy your environmentally friendly makeup.

It might be cheaper to buy them directly from the makeup brand (if they have a web shop). But I also know that some companies buy makeup in bulk just to resell with the lowest market price. In that way, they will steal a lot of market shares simply by knowing how to optimize their Amazon store.

Quite convenient for the consumers – having all the brands listed with the cheapest prices on one platform.

Is it better to buy vegan skincare? Learn more here.

How can you figure out if a makeup brand really is eco-friendly?

It is a fine line between claiming to sell eco-friendly makeup and really doing it. A lot of makeup companies tend to use words such as “organic” and “environmentally friendly” in their marketing campaigns to trick the customers. Luckily, more and more of us do care about the origin and environmental footprint of the products we buy. Unfortunately, that leads to a lot of sleezy (and fake) marketing methods.

This is how you can spot makeup companies that do “greenwashing”:

1) By Googling the brand. Reading reviews from other people will often reveal more or less everything you need to know about a makeup company. After all: there are a lot of “beauty bloggers” out there.

2) Look how much space the company use on their website to “support” environmental causes. I have seen a clear pattern on this. Companies that dare to take a clear stand by writing all over their website that they are cruelty-free, vegan, eco-friendly, etc. are much more trustworthy than those who don’t.

3) Look at the ingredients. Do they contain things that are non-vegan or in any way can harm the environment?

All these tricks will lead you to the right conclusion in a pretty quick way. I have even once sent an e-mail to a company as they were clearly misleading people to believe that their products were environmentally friendly. They did not respond to my e-mail (which I didn’t expect them to), but I have yet to see any “greenwashing” attempts from them after that.