The standards for “clean” beauty are about as opaque as this year’s Best of Beauty-winning liquid eyeliner (Lisa Eldridge Kitten Flick Liquid Eyeliner). While we do celebrate a little mystery in makeup, we would really like to see more transparency in so-called clean products. But there is no universal definition of clean in the beauty industry, and no agreed-upon rules a brand must follow to call its products “nontoxic”—a word that’s too alarmist, anyway, to be worth using. So we created Allure’s Clean Standard, a high bar that products must meet in order to win an Allure Best of Beauty Clean seal.
When you’re shopping for beauty products and see claims on a label like “clean,” or the even more vague “green,” it’s usually because that’s what a brand believes its product is. Yes, it’s completely up to the companies to decide which ingredients to use and not to use; and retailers choose what qualifies as such for their own sites.
To be fair, though, there is no right or wrong answer for what makes a product clean. There are so many cosmetic ingredients out there, and so many brands formulating with them, but no definitive study that weighs the risks and benefits of every single ingredient. In short, no one has all the answers.
But there are ways to make informed decisions, and that’s exactly what we set out to do when we created Allure’s Clean Standard in 2019. We interviewed epidemiologists, toxicologists, cosmetic chemists, and dermatologists about ingredients you can reasonably choose to avoid when shopping for cleaner skin-care, hair-care, makeup, and body-care products.
Ultimately, we identified 14 ingredient classes that a product cannot include if it is to qualify for our Clean awards: Parabens, phthalates, cyclic silicones, sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate, microbeads (polyethylene and polypropylene), triclosan, talc, aluminum salts (antiperspirant actives), mineral oil, petrolatum, hydroquinone, formaldehyde, toluene, and chemical UV filters must all be excluded from an ingredient list. This makes our Clean standard an especially transparent one for brands to meet.
Some of these ingredients are known to be harmful for us and/or the environment (formaldehyde, microbeads) and have generally been abandoned by the beauty industry already; others, however, fall into more of a gray area, with no solid proof that they are harmful nor enough evidence to indisputably deem them safe. (You can read more about each of these ingredients, and why we chose to omit them, here.)
To be clear, we love all different types of beauty products (except for those with formaldehyde), but we also love having access to good information; the kind of information that values accuracy over marketing claims. The 24 winners below are considered worthy by Allure of being called clean, and worthy of a hard-won spot in your beauty routine—and that includes one perfect, bold liquid eyeliner.
Shop your favorite category or keep scrolling for the year’s very best skin-care, hair-care, and makeup products in the clean category.
Why It Won: This dark green jar is full of surprises! What looks like a solid wax inside quickly dissolves into one of the most decadent-feeling face washes we’ve ever tried. Farmacy Green Clean Cleansing Balm turns into a milky oil that deeply nourishes and softens skin with moringa seed oil, while melting away makeup and grime. The experience of using this balm—from smoothing it over dry skin to rinsing it off with warm water or a damp cloth—is relaxing, comforting, and leaves our skin totally refreshed.
Why It Won: When skin hits a rough patch—becoming dry, flaky, or tight—this slim yellow tube is a soothing godsend. Aunu Mānuka Salve revives parched areas using a laundry list of moisturizing and calming ingredients, including manuka honey, glycerin, squalane, oat kernel oil, and linoleic acid. It’s all packed into a balm that offers quick relief even as you rub it in. And it’s light enough that you can use it on your face, proving a hardworking salve can also be downright elegant.
Why It Won: These jiggly green patches may look like the slime from Ghostbusters in the jar, but the only supernatural thing about Yepoda The Depuff Eyespresso is how these patches can deliver calming, cools-on-contact heaven to puffy, tired undereyes for 15 minutes straight. Each slightly oversized patch stays chill long enough to be thoroughly relaxing—which feels amazing, yes, but also helps to temporarily reduce bags—and covers both undereyes and crow’s feet at once, treating the whole area to a hydrating, tightening caffeine, green tea, aloe vera, and calendula-infused serum experience.
Why It Won: Unlike so many watery essences
Why It Won: Unlike so many watery essences that feel like, well, water when you pat them on, Innisfree Green Tea Ceramide Milk calms and hydrates, making skin feel refreshed and noticeably softer right off the bat. This formula contains ceramides and lipids (sourced from green tea) and nine types of hyaluronic acid (did you know there were that many?) to hydrate without leaving any tacky residue, so you can layer away without worrying about pilling. Instead, this creamy essence makes our skin so much smoother, our makeup can be applied more seamlessly on top.
Why It Won: Sure, flower petals glistening in the early-morning light may be pretty, but they’ve got nothing on our skin: Honest Hydrogel Cream gives complexions the kind of natural-looking dewiness we’ve been chasing since our early 20s (when our skin looked radiant all on its own). The glow we get from this refreshing gel-cream is instant, and its plant-derived squalane and jojoba esters help support the moisture barrier, too, for more radiant skin in the long run.
Why It Won: Whether you’re going to spend the day in the sun (safely!) or popping in and out of your car, a layer of Doctor Rogers Day Preventive Treatment under your sunscreen will help keep your skin protected from the pollution and free radicals it encounters along the way. Including an antioxidant blend of vitamin C and E derivatives, this thin, milky serum is almost as light as water. It has a lovely, silky feel that lets it play well with any sunscreen we’ve paired with it—and any makeup we might put on top of that.
Why It Won: Part hydrating face mist
Why It Won: Part hydrating face mist and part setting spray, this non-aerosol spritz actually makes skin feel softer and makeup look dewier with its radiant finish. Hydrating ingredients such as humectant glycogen and propanediol give your foundation, blush, bronzer, concealer, and highlighter (you get the gist) long-lasting hold. Instead of PVP (polyvinylpyrrolidone) or acrylate polymers, Saie CitySet Lightweight Setting Spray uses plant-derived polymers (hydrolyzed corn starch) to form a flexible shield over your makeup, helping to keep it looking fresh, smudge-free, and, yep, glowing until you’re ready to take it off.
Why It Won: Bay Area brow artist Michele Holmes set out to make graying brows (like her own) and sparse arches look believably fuller and darker, mixing tints and testing brushes for three-and-a-half years, ultimately creating Rye Beauty Tinted Brow Milk. This is a creamy take on brow pomades that effects a bold, fluffy look without stiffness or shine. The formula feels soft on application, conditions brow hairs with sodium hyaluronate, and helps strengthen them with licorice root, pomegranate extracts, and keratin-boosting peptides.
Why It Won: This multitasking concealer accomplishes a lot before we’ve even had coffee, covering pimples, redness, sun spots, and undereye circles while also treating areas of discoloration with skin-tone-evening tranexamic acid. Ciele Cosmetics Conceal & Protect SPF 50’s small doe-foot applicator makes precise application a cinch, the creamy liquid is easy to blend with a few taps of your finger, and the formula’s gentle mineral sunscreens (21.34% zinc oxide and 4.25% titanium dioxide) help shield areas that need sun protection the most. Existing hyperpigmentation can be exacerbated by UV rays, for example, and the delicate skin under the eyes is especially prone to the effects of sun damage like fine lines and sagging. There you have it–-a concealer that helps protect skin from the sun and looks good doing it. A win, win!
Why It Won: A gleaming, tinted lip treatment
Why It Won: A gleaming, tinted lip treatment that’s long on moisture, Nooni Lip Oil soothes chapped lips and keeps them soft and smooth with a fancy fruit basket worth of extracts like kakadu plum, cherry, and apple and raspberry seed oils. It’s got the color payoff of a sheer lipstick—in beautiful red, pink, and plum shades (plus one clear option)—and a glossy finish that mellows into a pretty stain while you wear it (but the moisturizing botanicals definitely maintain their intensity).
Why It Won: With a precise brush tip, intense black color, and a long-wearing formula that doesn’t feather or fade, 19/99 Liquid Pen Eyeliner does everything possible to make liquid eyeliner look seamless, short of drawing the cat eye itself. (But could someone make that happen one day, please?)
Why It Won: Optimists say that each day is a chance to start fresh, and Merit The Minimalist Perfecting Complexion Stick certainly gives us at least one clean slate every morning. This creamy foundation-and-concealer stick (it doubles as both!) is richly pigmented; easy to buff and blend; comes in a whopping range of 30 shades; and has the most natural-looking, skin-like finish. All of that makes the business of hiding blemishes and discoloration easier than ever, creating the most flawless-looking complexions. Angry red pimples and stubborn areas of hyperpigmentation are more easily camouflaged by this base product than so many others we’ve tried.
Why It Won: We fell in love
Why It Won: We fell in love with this fluffy body moisturizer the moment we opened the weighty glass jar. The dreamy texture and incredible scents of Josie Maran Whipped Argan Oil Body Butter make us feel like we’ve spent the afternoon lounging with a book on a pristine beach, listening to the waves as we cap off the day with an unhurried outdoor shower before nourishing our body in Maran’s amber- or fig-scented awesomeness. Using this body butter is like that kind of unencumbered self-care, lady-of-leisure moment, even on the most banal, land-locked Tuesday. It doesn’t hurt that the hydration we get from this decadent formula is nearly unparalleled, with skin-smoothing argan oil and shea butter packed into a texture that feels like whipped cream (without the stickiness). As you spread it across skin, it sinks in quickly, bringing tons of radiance along. There’s also a fragrance-free option (Always Nude), and delicate scents to suit every taste: gourmand (sweet Vanilla Vibezzz), citrus (bright Topless Tangerine), woodsy (deep Bohemian Fig), subtly warm (amber Golden Hour), and more.
Why It Won: Calling it a “body scrub” doesn’t really do this treatment justice because Oak Essentials Perfecting Body Scrub does much more than slough, making skin feel smoother with exfoliating sugar beads cushioned in moisturizing and aromatic botanical oils, including coconut, sweet almond, lemon peel, and more (there are a dozen in total). The sugar makes quick work of dead cells, while the silky oil-rich base has all the moisture—and comforting feel—of body oil for softer, superhydrated skin.
Why It Won: Watermelon sorbet and lychee sound like the world’s most enticing palate cleanser, and this duo is every bit as refreshing as you’d want it to be, olfactorily speaking, in Henry Rose Ripe Eau de Parfum. The fruity notes are mellowed by light florals (jasmine, peony, rose water), soft sandalwood, and clean musk for a perfume that’s much more delicate and nuanced than the usual in-your-face fruit-forward fragrance.
Why It Won: They say there are no
Why It Won: They say there are no small parts, only small actors; in the world of beauty products, then, Herbivore Coco Rose Deodorant is the supporting character that runs away with the show. The thoughtful fragrance—coconut, rose, berries, and vanilla—and minimalist pink packaging make this one of our favorite morning prep steps, which is definitely a first in our experience with deodorants. This nourishing, aluminum-free stick moisturizes underarms with squalane and coconut oil and helps counter odors with tapioca starch. We sometimes need to reapply, perhaps after a brisk walk or before a big meeting, but the stick smells so divine, we’re happy to comply.
Why It Won: When it comes to lovely ways to wake up, this gel body wash—with a bright citrus scent that’s a dead-ringer for a fresh orange—rivals breakfast in bed (without crumbs, so point one for body wash) or cappuccino with a balcony view (without using our miles, so point two for body wash). Each & Every Day Dream Body Wash is a mood-boosting morning dose of aromatherapy, with a scent that comes from naturally derived ingredients, including essential oils. Meanwhile, plant-based cleansers foam into a creamy lather, and rich oils (macadamia and moringa) hydrate skin.
Why It Won: This hydrating body mist’s creamy, woody scent is as sexy as can be. Of course, Sidia The Body Mist in Braless is first and foremost a moisturizer (and a great one at that), but it’s also unapologetically fragranced. Patchouli lovers will adore how it smooths the classic earthy note with coconut, leather, and vanilla. The scent, coupled with the hydrating (glycerin) and radiance-boosting (niacinamide) spritz, makes this mist worthy of big nights out—or big nights in, if you catch our drift. Just know that whenever you reach for it, you’ll be giving sultry, smoldering, and mysterious (pretty much all the alluring adjectives).
Why It Won: The ingredients in this hair
Why It Won: The ingredients in this hair mask may read like ingredients for a peculiar recipe—garlic bulb, wasabi, and ginger root extracts; avocado oil; broccoli seed oil; and chickpea and lentil seed extracts—but they come together to create a very satisfying concoction (but please, no tasting). Bur Bur Growing Season Deep Repair Hair Mask takes a pinch of this and a sprinkling of that—using a diverse mix of botanical oils and, like any good recipe, lots of butter (in this case, sourced from plants)—to deep condition dry or damaged hair. We like to leave it on for at least 10 minutes if we can, leaving hair softer, smoother, and much more lustrous.
Why It Won: Itchy, dry, tight scalps, let us introduce you to Rahua Aloe Vera Shampoo and Conditioner. We just know you’ll hit it off. This shampoo is almost as rich and creamy as its conditioner sibling, bathing scalps in soothing moisture with aloe vera and Amazonian rahua fruit oil, helping relieve uncomfortable tightness and freeing you from the urge to scratch your scalp. The conditioner, surprisingly, is as light as the shampoo is dense, delivering sheer hydration with a mix of fruit, seed, and jojoba oils that helps keep hair shiny and frizz-free.
Why It Won: Sometimes more is more. Take, for example, the whopping 16 vitamins and amino acids in Rizos Curls Heat Protection Multivitamin Leave-In, which make our hair feel stronger, softer, and shinier (so much shinier). Mango seed butter and rose water help protect against breakage and hydrate while ramping up brilliance, and plant proteins smooth over damage. We could go on, but we’ll just say this: Our hair has never looked healthier or shinier. (Did we mention the shine?)
Why It Won: Your blowouts are about to get a lot easier: Ochre Everything Hair Cream adds soft hold, heads off frizz, and ups the shine by about a billion notches. This formula uses panthenol to smooth hair for more polished styles, but it’s not just for the heat-stylers among us; if you comb it through damp hair before air-drying, the fragrance-free cream boosts natural texture in all hair types, while preventing flyaways.
Why It Won: Everything that can be off-putting about dry shampoos—cloying scents, chalky residue—is delightfully absent from Divi Dry Shampoo. This elegant mist soaks up oil with rice and corn starch and leaves roots looking fresh. The best part? Roots feel as clean as they look without an obvious smell or white cast after a quick zhuzh. In our experience (which is vast), a few spritzes are about as close as you can get to actually shampooing your hair.
Written by Elizabeth Siegel
Discover more 2026 Best of Beauty Winners:
Best of Beauty 2026: Breakthroughs
Best of Beauty 2026: Steals Winners
Best of Beauty 2026: Splurge Winners
