How to formulate vegan skin care products: ethical and good for business

Learning about formulating vegan products could be a hugely transformative experience, even if you aren’t vegan! Vegan skin care offers the same health benefits as other natural products, but you also can go a step or two further and make products that are considered even more ethical. Because no animal-derived ingredients are used in formulating vegan products, and neither the products nor ingredients have been tested on animals, no harm has come to animals at any part in the production process. This makes vegan products not just natural, but also cruelty-free.

So, even if you are not vegan, there are some serious thumbs-up when it comes to creating skin care products that conform to a highly ethical code, especially if you intend to make products to sell. Cruelty-free and vegan products can be a huge boost to business!

We’re going to shed some light on this movement, and open it up to those of you who may not be familiar with it, or may not see how it can be a benefit to your skin, your beauty products, or your business!

Keep reading to discover:

• Vegan skin care 101: What does vegan mean? And what does it mean with regard to skincare products?
• Why vegan skin care might be right for you
• Formulating with vegan ingredients
• Non-vegan ingredients and vegan alternatives (a super handy chart!)
• Spotlight: Vegan alternatives to beeswax
• Switch It Up! A sample vegan lip balm

Why Vegan Skin Care Might be Right for You

Quite possibly the number one reason why people are drawn to vegan products, and a vegan lifestyle, is to support animal welfare. For vegans, avoiding harming or killing animals is of paramount priority. Even for many non-vegan, eco-conscious consumers of natural beauty products, if a skin care product is available that has been made without harm to animals, that can be a huge plus.

Not too long ago, vegans were relatively uncommon. But today, the vegan movement is mainstream, and there’s no sign of that growth stopping. Vegan cafes, shops, food stalls, cosmetic brands and even entire aisles in supermarkets are popping up everywhere.

In fact, these days, being vegan is considered both healthy as well as trendy!

Actors, musicians, models, and even sports stars are changing to vegan lifestyles, and bringing more visibility to the fact that it is possible to make ethically-conscious, thoughtful choices and still reach healthy, peak performance. Celebrities such as Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Moby, Thom Yorke, Petra Nemcova, Alicia Silverstone, Anne Hathaway, Natalie Portman, Stevie Wonder, Lewis Hamilton… they’ve all been proud to speak about their vegan lifestyle, bringing it to the attention of a mainstream audience.

Like it or not, when famous people get on board with something, more attention is drawn to it and lots of people tend to follow!

Making products that are natural and/or organic is a wonderful choice with a large and growing market. But you could take your products to another level with a few simple tweaks and make them vegan—and that means you’d enter into the fast-growing segment of the natural and organic beauty market that’s also in search of cruelty-free, vegan, and ethical products, while still appealing to the broader natural beauty movement.

Going vegan with your skin care products helps you to hone in on a growing target market—and the market impact you could create could be even greater.

And you don’t have to change your approach to labeling, or worry that making a natural product vegan will turn away potential customers. With the right labelling, people who aren’t vegan won’t be turned off by the fact that it’s cruelty-free, for example, while people who are looking specifically for vegan products will see that it also meets their needs.

Formulating with Vegan Ingredients

While there are significant benefits to formulating with natural and organic ingredients, most of the benefits to formulating with vegan ingredients are that you’re avoiding things which might have caused animals to be harmed. For our students who are especially concerned about the ethical and environmental impact of their ingredients, this can be a huge reason to switch. What could be more impactful than avoiding pain in other living beings?

From the marketing side of things, there’s also the audience-appeal factor to vegan products. This means that, with the right swaps, you won’t have to compromise the effective and functional qualities of your products, while also broadening your potential customer base.

If you’re interested in learning more about certifications available for vegan products, you can check out:

• Vegan Society: UK-based organization certifying vegan products.
• Vegan: US-based organization certifying vegan products.

Due to the significant overlap between vegan and cruelty-free, it’s worth it to also consider those organizations as well:

• Leaping Bunny
• Choose Cruelty Free

Non-vegan ingredients and vegan alternatives

Whether you are formulating products yourself or checking the ingredients of product you buy, here are some things to look out for. Some of the ingredients below can be obtained from both animal and vegetable sources, and you will need to check with the supplier of the ingredient or product to find out which one they are using.

Formulating vegan products can be as simple as choosing carefully the source of an ingredient (for example choosing vegetable glycerin over other versions).

It may mean substituting one ingredient for another. For example using an alternative emollient to lanolin. Or using carnauba wax instead of beeswax. If changing an existing non-vegan formula to a vegan one you may need to alter the percentage that you use the substitute ingredients to achieve a similar end result.

It may mean simply not using certain ingredients such as keratin.

Spotlight: Vegan Alternatives to Beeswax

Our students often ask about a vegan alternative to beeswax. Luckily, there are plenty to choose from! But you do need to be aware that different waxes may need to be used at different amounts to achieve the same hardness in a product.

We carried out an experiment with vegan waxes (carnauba wax, candelilla wax, jojoba wax and rose wax) and how they compare to beeswax. Our Diploma in Natural Skincare Formulation includes the full experiment and report so you can easily see how much of a vegan wax to use to replace beeswax. Plus we also compared other characteristics such as how the waxes felt on the skin, for example do they feel sticky, greasy, silky, etc, and how easily they were absorbed. Here is a summary of what we found:

Switch It Up! A Sample Vegan Lip Balm

We have previously shared a simple, but luxurious, formula for a Cocoa Butter Lip Balm. It’s very easy to change this into a vegan product by switching the beeswax for a vegan wax. In the case of this formula, we used beeswax at 16%. As you can see from the chart above, at percentages between 15-20% beeswax, candelilla wax and carnauba wax create a similar level of firmness, so you can keep the percentage the same. Outside of this percentage range you might also need to change the percentage used.

Original formula:

73.5g sunflower or sweet almond oil
16g beeswax
10g cocoa butter
0.5g essential oil of your choice (eg orange, peppermint or geranium)

Vegan formula

73.5g sunflower or sweet almond oil
16g candelilla wax or carnauba wax
10g cocoa butter
0.5g essential oil of your choice (eg orange, peppermint or geranium)