Following on from last week’s reflection on The Beauty of Raw Ingredients and Why We Leave Them Just As They Are, it feels important to pause and look at how easily the meaning of clean has come to shape the way we talk about skincare.
Clean beauty is one of those phrases that sounds like it should mean something very specific, yet somehow manages to mean almost anything at all.
What Does Clean Beauty Actually Mean
It appears on bottles, websites and social media captions, wrapped in soft colours and reassuring language, clean, pure, gentle, safe, all words designed to make us feel calm and in control. But the truth is, clean beauty is not a regulated term, there is no single definition, no universal standard, and no requirement for brands to explain what clean actually means in practice.
Clean beauty is generally used as a marketing term to suggest that a product is safe, non toxic, or free from certain controversial ingredients. The difficulty is that each brand decides what clean means to them. For some, it refers to avoiding synthetic fragrance or parabens, for others it may mean plant based formulas or minimal ingredient lists. Because it is not regulated, the term often reflects brand values and presentation more than a fixed standard.
This is where raw ingredients quietly sit apart from the noise.
What Raw Ingredients Really Are
Raw skincare is not about appearing clean, it is about being honest.
When an ingredient is raw, it has undergone minimal processing and has not been overly refined, bleached, deodorised or stripped back to fit a particular aesthetic. It still looks, smells and feels like itself, and there is nothing especially marketable about this, which is perhaps why it rarely gets shouted about. Raw ingredients can be inconsistent, they can vary in colour, carry a natural scent that cannot be airbrushed away, and they do not always fit neatly into the visual language of modern beauty.
And that is precisely the point.
Raw ingredients are materials that remain close to their original form, and because they have not been heavily processed, they retain more of their naturally occurring vitamins, fatty acids and antioxidants. They may look less polished, but they offer nourishment that has not been removed and replaced.
When Clean Becomes a Marketing Language
Clean beauty marketing often focuses on what has been removed, no this, free from that, stripped right back until very little remains that could possibly offend, even the soul at times. While this can sound comforting, it can also distract from a much more important question, what is actually left in the product, and how has it been treated?
What Processing Can Take Away
An ingredient can technically meet a clean beauty checklist while still being heavily processed. Refining can involve high heat, repeated filtration or chemical treatments designed to create uniformity and stability. These processes may improve shelf life or visual appeal, but they often come at the expense of naturally occurring vitamins, antioxidants and fatty acids, leaving an ingredient that may look cleaner but is often nutritionally quieter.
Raw ingredients work in the opposite direction, prioritising nourishment over neatness and retaining their natural nutritional profile because it has not been removed in the first place. The benefit is not always immediate or dramatic, but it is deeply supportive, allowing the skin to simply receive the ingredient rather than work around it.
There is also a subtle fear woven through clean beauty marketing, fear of chemicals, fear of ageing, fear of doing something wrong, with lists of banned ingredients that can create the impression that skin is fragile and constantly under threat. Raw skincare does not rely on fear, it relies on trust, trust in the skin’s ability to recognise and respond to ingredients that are close to their original form.
A Story Told Through Shea Butter
Shea butter is a perfect example of how these two worlds diverge.
In clean beauty marketing, shea butter is often presented as a neutral base, odourless, white, smooth and predictable, behaving well in formulations and never challenging the senses. But raw shea butter tells a richer story, carrying a warm, nutty scent, a colour that shifts depending on harvest and origin, and a texture that melts slowly, sometimes unevenly, into the skin. These qualities are not flaws, they are evidence of an ingredient that has not been stripped of its character or its nutrients.
Raw shea butter carries vitamins, essential fatty acids and anti inflammatory properties that support the skin barrier and promote long term comfort. These benefits are not added back in with actives or claims, they are inherent and exist because the ingredient has been respected.
Perfection Versus Support
Another difference between raw skincare and clean beauty marketing is how perfection is framed.
Clean beauty often presents an image of effortlessness, perfect skin that just happens to look that way because the products are clean. Raw skincare is more realistic, acknowledging that skin is living tissue that changes with hormones, seasons, stress and age. It does not promise to fix or correct, it offers support instead.
This is why raw ingredients feel so aligned with a pro ageing approach to skincare, as they do not fight the skin, demand consistency at all costs or punish deviation, but instead meet the skin where it is, in whatever state it happens to be in that day.
Choosing Integrity Over Aesthetic
Choosing raw over clean marketing is not about rejecting safety or thoughtfulness, it is about looking beyond labels and asking deeper questions, how was this ingredient treated, what was removed to make it look this way, and what story has been lost in the process.
At Olive and Joyce, raw ingredients are not a trend or a positioning exercise, they are a reflection of how I believe skincare should feel, honest, sensory, nourishing and free from unnecessary interference.
Raw skincare does not promise perfection, it promises presence, inviting you to notice texture, scent and variation, to trust your skin rather than fear it, and to choose integrity over polish.
In a beauty industry obsessed with looking clean, raw ingredients quietly remind us that being real is far more powerful.