What is a Multipurpose Cosmetic or Minimal Ingredient Makeup Fo…

Klarrisa Howell

Content Writer
Google Docs
The beauty industry faces several challenges; including irritating cosmetics and far too much packaging waste. We believe multipurpose and minimalist cosmetics are the answer for people who refuse to give up beauty products but wish to do better for their skin and the environment.
In short, “what is that?” can be answered with one concept: mindful beauty.

The Mindful Consumer and Beauty Industry Problem

The beauty routine is a magical hour — every swipe, dab, and mist becomes a precious instrument of self-expression. But as a mindful consumer buying a half-dozen tubes of this-or-that isn’t magical but seems rather wasteful. The thing is, cosmetics is such a booming industry. It's difficult to tell which brands are producing truly sustainable products. Frequently, consumers are left to figure it out (e.g., determining what’s greenwashing and what’s not.)
Greenwashing is when a brand utilizes a larger budget to appear more eco-conscious than they do in creating actual, clean beauty products.
Our founder, a licensed esthetician, found herself questioning the cosmetics industry. Her response was the creation of our multipurpose, magnetic eyeliner made with minimal ingredients, and a line of customizable eyelashes. (*cough* shameless plug *cough, cough*.) We want to suggest a similar question to the one our founder asked herself before formulating our coveted line of magnetic eyeliner and false eyelashes.
Here's the question:
Do you really need four different tubes of mascara or is one product formulated with minimal ingredients able to get the job done — and then some?
That’s what we want to chitchat about today: minimal ingredient formulas along with multitasking cosmetics and how they could change the way individuals go about doing their makeup.
Brands in the beauty industry seem to fall into two categories. The first sort squeezes formulas into tubes with the hope that it will be the next big thing. The second type of beauty company cares about the face their product will sit on all day. Sustainable beauty brands also take into consideration their environmental impact.
“Beauty is an industry that gets a bad rap when it comes to sustainability. That’s because the beauty industry generates up to 120 billion units of plastics packaging per year[...]” - Green Business Bureau
Of course, any sort of beauty company will make you look good. But what company aligns with your values?
Clean Beauty refers to products formulated without harmful or irritating synthetic chemicals or ingredients. The use of synthetic ingredients isn't necessarily a bad thing, and we'll get into that later.
If you haven’t heard about minimal ingredient formulas before, you’re not alone.
Like most other sustainable beauty brands, our mission is to provide the everyday person with easy-to-use makeup, made mindfully, and with beneficial ingredients. But it is also our job to spread the word: there is better quality makeup out there.
We're creating cosmetics that are sustainable, clean, and perfectly formulated.
But because the concept of sustainable beauty has so many terms, it doesn’t always seem so straightforward. We promise you will understand once we finish.

Understanding Sustainable Beauty

In any discussion about sustainable beauty, there's an overload of terms - clean beauty, eco-friendly, green beauty, sustainable beauty, organic beauty, greenwashing, minimalist beauty, skinimalism (thanks, Pinterest), and toxic beauty. There are also whole movements like “planet over profit beauty,” and “less-is-more beauty.” So, we get it. It's confusing and how do you know what effort to commit to? Or what brand is OK to go with?
Thankfully, with the evolution of the clean beauty movement, companies have emerged to help consumers wade through an ocean of information. Because we're proud of our minimal ingredient magnetic eyeliner, we're here to help you learn.

Minimal Ingredient Formulas: What they are and What They Aren't

Formulated with Your Health in Mind
It aligns pretty closely with the clean beauty movement whereby you can use a product without having to be concerned about risking your health due to the nature of what's in it.
Smart Use of Synthetic Ingredients
It doesn't mean that you have to have all-natural or organic. While those things are nice, certain synthetic ingredients do exist for a reason and can aid in creating a truly powerful product (see more on this below).
Quality over Fast and Cheap
At its core, it means that you have more powerful ingredients and fewer filler ingredients. Higher-quality ingredients outweigh low-quality or cheap ingredients. Eliminating toxins from daily products.
Minimal Ingredients aren’t Minimal Packaging
Minimalist beauty is closely aligned - but not the same as minimal ingredient makeup. We're talking about what's inside the cosmetics. In minimalist beauty products, you may see simple packaging, and great branding, offering all the conveniences of a minimal lifestyle - but don't be confused with the ingredient label. What's inside the product? When it comes to clean beauty, the formula is what matters more than the packaging.
Fewer Products and Ingredients Needed to Get the Job Done
It's close to the concept of multi-purpose cosmetics (i.e., a blush that acts as both a lipstick and an eyeshadow, as well as a toothpaste, thus eliminating the need to buy four products instead of one). Multipurpose cosmetics also closely align with clean beauty.

The Development of Minimal Ingredient Cosmetics

The fewer the ingredients, the better. Consider anything that can be used for more than one purpose as a win! An effective formula takes into account all the necessary elements, and each ingredient is as minimal as possible, yet powerful in its intended purpose, without compromising the performance of the final product.
Less, but better. Clean ingredients are carefully considered for their purpose.
Toxic Beauty refers to products that contain ingredients that could impact the rest of your life (like hormone-disrupting substances) or cause you discomfort (like a rash.) Natural cosmetics are often a response to toxic beauty.
Natural-only products may sometimes contain unknown allergens or lack essential components to produce a particular outcome or result. In other words, while natural products might seem to be the best choice, other factors need to be considered.
During product development, we have to consider things like:
What are we trying to achieve?
Where is this product being applied?
How is the product being applied?
How important is it that this formula doesn't become spoiled by microbial contamination (i.e., say goodbye to your fav preservative-free products)?
However, that doesn't mean all-natural products shouldn't appeal to beauty lovers: they're absolutely needed. But folks —everything has its purpose.
As a clean beauty brand, our top priority is ensuring safety and quality, which is one of the reasons our founder chose to create a minimal-ingredient cosmetics brand. She created the company because of the belief that makeup should be both safe and beneficial.
Better and simpler ingredients mean fewer risks for you, my friend.
Due to an overabundance of products, the beauty market faces stiff competition. It is often up to shoppers to decide which brands to trust and which ones value well-being. That can be tricky. We don't like tricky. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to sift through all this information - after all, we want simplicity to be the norm.

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