How to read past the marketing, spot the red flags, and find brands you can actually trust
I used to stand on a soapbox about chemical-free skincare. I believed it completely. I said it with conviction. I probably said it to anyone who would listen. Driving one afternoon in our beautiful South Africa and stopping at a robot, I even pictured myself standing there with a big sign, sometimes I wish I had done that - standing there with a sign that said DEMAND CHEMICAL-FREE SKINCARE, megaphone in hand. I would have learned my lesson a lot sooner.
Finally, someone pointed out that water is a chemical. Air is a chemical. Everything is, technically, a chemical. And just like that, the phrase I'd been using as a badge of honour dissolved into smoke and mirrors, revealing the great illusion of marketing.
Here's the thing, though - the "chemical-free" conversation isn't just wrong, it's irrelevant. It's a distraction from the questions that actually matter: what is in this product, where it came from, what it does once it's on your skin, and what the endpoint of its journey is when it's eventually washed down the drain?
So yes, today I have a skincare brand with raw fermented papaya as our magnificent active, but I didn't come to skincare through any traditional route. I came through the shipping industry, where I watched oil companies conceal Brent light spills because - unlike the thick black crude that makes headlines - you can't see them on the surface. I also came to the deeply unsettling, outright disturbing reality that this is the same stuff we put in our skincare. Don’t ask about that day, it wasn’t a good one.
One evening out with friends at a film festival, I watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and felt something shift. I started asking questions about what we put into the world and onto our bodies. I left the industry, and after quite the journey of exploration, I started making skincare the way I wanted to see it made.
But I carried that "chemical-free" rhetoric with me for a while, because that was the language of the movement I was joining. It was unsubstantiated, it was oversimplified, and I believed every word of it.
What I've learned since then - through years of formulating, researching, and having my assumptions pulled apart - is that the real conversation is far more nuanced, far more interesting, and far more useful than a slogan on a sign. And it starts not with a marketing claim, but with an ingredient label.
Start With the Ingredient Label, Not the Marketing
The single most reliable thing you can do is read the ingredient list — and definitely not just the front of the packaging. The brand story can be worth reading, but only if it ties back to the ingredients themselves. The INCI list — that's the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients - is printed in small text, usually on the back or the bottom.
The INCI list is the most honest thing on the packaging -but it's not without its own complexity. The same ingredient name can hide two completely different origins, and the system itself is run by a committee funded by the beauty industry. I went into all of that in Decoding the Gibberish, how to read a natural skincare label - if you have the stomach for it.
That list is where the truth lives.
Marketing language is unregulated. Words like "natural," "pure," "green," and even "organic" can appear on packaging without meeting any specific legal standard in South Africa, and in a lot more countries than you would have expected or hoped for. A brand can call itself organic and still be using ingredients you wouldn't want anywhere near your skin.
The ingredient list can't lie in the same way. It has to reflect what's actually in the product, listed in descending order of concentration. So if water is first and a synthetic polymer is second, you know. That said, there are boogeymen lurking even there - just be aware.
So while checking out a brand on Instagram is very lekker, you have to look at AYA Balm's handle, it tells a story - every conscious consumer needs to spend quality time on the small print on the back of the bottle.
What You're Actually Looking For
When you're reading an ingredient label, you're looking for a few things.
First, check that you recognise most of what's there. Generally, a more natural formulation will contain identifiable ingredients - plant oils, plant extracts, butters, waxes, water, botanical actives. It's not about knowing every INCI name by heart, but if the list reads like a chemistry exam and nothing is familiar, you might want to put it down and back away gently.
Second, look for synthetic polymers. These are the ingredients that often slip through unnoticed, and they are my absolute pet hate for good reason. They matter more than most people realise.
The Microplastic Problem Most People Don't Know About
Here's something that surprises a lot of people: microplastics are not just in scrubs and exfoliants. They're in serums, moisturisers, foundations, and hair products, added to improve texture, create slip, or extend shelf life. And they go by names that sound almost innocuous.
Watch out for:
- Polyethylene (PE)
- Polypropylene (PP)
- Acrylates Copolymer
- Carbomer (in some forms)
- PEGs (polyethylene glycols)
- Nylon-12
These are plastics. Liquid or solid, they wash off your skin and down the drain, and most wastewater systems can't filter them out. They end up in rivers, oceans, and ultimately the food chain.
What frustrates me is that some of these ingredients have been accepted - or let me say rather, not explicitly excluded - by certain organic and natural certification bodies. I went down that particular cesspool in The Unregulated Truth About Natural Beauty; it's illuminating and slightly rage-inducing.
Why Organic Certification Isn't the Whole Story
I want to be careful here because I'm not anti-certification. Some certification bodies do excellent work, COSMOS/ECOCERT and NATRUE, for example, prohibit microplastics and hold brands to genuinely rigorous standards. But not every "organic" or "natural" certification is that thorough. Some require as little as 70% organic content by weight, meaning up to 30% of a product could contain ingredients unrelated to clean formulation. And within that gap, synthetic polymers can and do appear.
An organic badge is a starting point, not a finish line. The certification body matters. The standard they use matters. And the ingredient list still matters most.
Why the Paraben Story Is More Complicated Than You Think
And this is where we come back to that 'chemical-free' sign I never got to wave. Because the fear of chemicals, real, understandable, and heavily marketed, has a way of outrunning the actual facts. No ingredient illustrates this better than parabens.
For almost a hundred years, parabens were used quietly and without controversy as preservatives in food, medicine, and cosmetics. They did their job, preventing mould and bacterial growth, and nobody paid much attention. Then, in 2004, a single study suggested a possible link between parabens and breast cancer tissue. The media picked it up, the "paraben-free" movement was born, and the beauty industry was never the same.
Formula Botanica's CEO, Lorraine Dallmeier, a biologist and chartered environmentalist, has called this phenomenon "parabenoia" - and honestly, that podcast blew my mind. I love it when our thinking gets challenged enough to expand the conversation. The 2004 study found parabens present in breast tumour tissue, but it did not establish that parabens caused those tumours. While that's an important distinction that got almost entirely lost in the headlines, it did start the culture of Indie Beauty, and that is no doubt a good thing.
Here's the part that most people don't know: parabens occur naturally. Certain plants and bacteria produce them. And we consume them constantly, in cereal-based snacks, dried meats, sauces, jams, soft drinks, and beer. They've been in our food supply for decades, approved by food safety regulators worldwide. If parabens were genuinely as dangerous as the fear suggested, we'd know by now.
That doesn't mean the conversation isn't worth having. There is legitimate ongoing research into parabens as potential endocrine disruptors - meaning they may weakly mimic oestrogen in the body. That's worth watching. The EU has regulated certain parabens at permitted levels in cosmetics, and some of the longer-chain parabens have been restricted or banned. Those are reasonable, evidence-based precautions.
But the blanket panic? The "paraben-free" badge worn as a mark of virtue, often replaced by preservatives that are newer, less tested, and potentially more irritating? That's where the story gets murky. The irony is that the rush away from parabens created a real problem for formulators - including me. Every water-based product needs a preservative. Without one, you're looking at a contaminated product, which is genuinely dangerous. And some of the alternatives to parabens that flooded the market in their wake have their own question marks.
I'm not saying go back to parabens uncritically. I'm saying: be curious, not reactive. Demand evidence. And be wary of any brand that uses "paraben-free" as a headline without being able to tell you what they used instead and why.
The Grey Areas Are Real - and Honest Brands Will Tell You
I use phenoxyethanol in some of my formulations. It's a well-studied, widely accepted preservative that works. I'm comfortable with it at the concentrations used in cosmetics, and I'm always watching the research to see if something better comes along. But I'll tell you it's there. You'll see it on my label.
This is what transparency actually looks like. Not a brand that claims to be 100% pure with no caveats, but a founder who can explain every ingredient, why it's there, and what the tradeoffs are. If a brand can't, or won't, do that, as I said before, put it down and back away quietly.
How to Research a Brand Beyond the Label
Reading the label gets you far, but there are a few other things worth doing.
Look the brand up. Not their curated social media, but reviews, interviews, and any press coverage. Do they talk about their ingredients in depth? Does the founder have a background in formulation - bearing in mind I don't, I come from the ass end of it, petroleum - or is this a white-label product with a nice story layered on top?
Ask questions. Email them. DM them. Ask what a specific ingredient does, or why they chose one preservative over another. A brand that genuinely knows and cares about what's in its products will answer you. They might even enjoy the conversation. I know I do.
Use resources like the EWG Skin Deep database, INCI Decoder, or the Beat the Microbead app to cross-check ingredients you're unsure about. These tools aren't perfect, and some lean toward the cautious side - but they give you a second opinion and a starting point for your own research.
What "Truly Natural" Looks Like in Practice
I started AYA because I wanted to make products I could fully stand behind. Products that I could explain from the first ingredient to the last, and would be happy to use on my children, now strapping teenagers.
My hero product, AYA Balm, is built around raw fermented papaya - an ingredient I chose because of what it actually does for skin, not because it sounds good on a label. Everything in my range comes from the same place: real ingredients, real reasons, and a willingness to be asked about any of it.
I'm not perfect. I'm always learning. Formulation is not a fixed science - it evolves, and the best brands evolve with it. But what I can offer every customer is this: I will stand in front of you and walk you through everything in the bottle. I'll tell you why it's there and what it does, and if I think there's a better option, I'll be the first to say so.
That's what I think truly natural skincare looks like. Not a pristine marketing claim, but a brand you can actually talk to.
The Short Version
If you're trying to figure out whether a skincare product is genuinely clean, here's where to start:
- Read the ingredient label first - it's the most honest thing on the packaging
- Learn to spot synthetic polymers and microplastics hiding in plain sight
- Treat organic certification as a starting point, not the final word
- Look for brands that talk openly about the grey areas, not just the wins
- Ask questions - a brand that knows its ingredients will always answer you
The skincare industry has made "natural" look easy. It isn't. But once you know what to look for, it becomes much harder to be fooled.
