How We're Raising the Bar Again

Au Naturale is a beauty brand inspired by an ugly truth: there is a lack of transparency - and a glut of misinformation and even lies - in our health and wellness economy. I first became aware of such opacity in the food industry and was later disappointed to find the same problem in the color cosmetics space.

Behind the guise of health and wellness are products laden with PEGS, phthalates, harsh dyes, talc, and endocrine disruptors. The truth behind product claims are rarely, if ever, investigated, and the greenwashing of the entire American marketplace continues to take place. Au Naturale was born to bring clarity to formulation and process with open transparency to the beauty industry.

And that’s not just lip service. Au Naturale’s mission has always been to empower the consumer as a trusted source for clean color. This affects everything we do, from how we formulate our products to which suppliers we work with for raw ingredients and how rigorous we are with third party testing. It also changes how we think and act on sustainability and the nonprofits we’ve worked with over the years, championing the environment, education, and women in the developing world. Not least amongst these efforts has been our ongoing advocacy for political action in Washington as part of the Clean Beauty Revolution®.

To us, Au Naturale is both a brand and a cause. One area of focus is Environmental Health and we feel that April is a perfect month to better tell our story and how it relates to protecting Mother Earth!

Our supply chain boasts a farm to face ethos, meaning we take great care in selecting vendors who either produce organic ingredients, or when organic and local is not available, natural ingredients processed and harvested with a focus on sustainability. Things we look for in a vendor include: cold pressing organic oils, non-use of hexane and pesticides, fair trade and other certifications, and transparency and willingness to share the details with us.

The organic and natural oils that we source and use are continuously vetted, and are third party tested in outside labs to ensure safety and quality. Yet we also test the inorganic materials, as in non-Carbon based, such as pigments, in our formulations. Given that minerals come from the earth, even the most pure and unadulterated sometimes contain heavy metals that can have negative health effects, something we avoid at all costs.

In short, our supply chain and our testing speaks to our intentions, and we are continuously seeking to improve on all fronts, from environmental sustainability, to human health impacts and product performance.

Yet just as we will never consider ourselves to be “clean enough” we do not feel we have done enough to tell our story and share the details. In the coming weeks and months we will be taking steps to introduce radical transparency into where we came from, where we are going, and most importantly, what’s in our makeup. We’ll build on the ingredient and certification information already available on the website and on the packaging by discussing our suppliers, our third-party testing, and our rationale behind specific decisions we make.

In short, while we’re proud of our leadership in raising the standards for ingredients and transparency in the industry, we’re even more excited to raise the bar again by giving you, the consumer and our number one priority, more information than you can handle! Stay tuned!

Have questions or want to know more? Email Us: info@aunaturaleglow.com