Natural, sustainable beauty is a phrase used liberally in the beauty industry. Today, we are used to beauty brands, mainstream and indie, touting the naturalness of their formulations and their sustainability credentials, but can we be critical of their products, words and actions if we are in the dark about what the terms mean? Do the brands themselves truly know what they are committing to when using these words?

Consumers may be far more unclear about where the differences lie between natural and sustainable than insiders in the beauty industry.

Among the many beauty industry terms we have covered on Green Beauty Conversations, natural and sustainable still stand out as being particularly misused despite their familiarity. They are interchanged in error, misunderstood at best or harnessed to mask green-washing at worst.

The terms seem so deceptively simple that it is entirely possible to not think through the complexities that underpin them.

Given the continued lack of clarity about natural and sustainable, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier and colleague Ana Green, the School's Education Manager, devote an entire episode to the origins, definitions and practical application of these words in the beauty sphere.

Listen in to make sense of natural and sustainable beauty and as a result, feel empowered as beauty formulators, founders and consumers to demand clarity from anyone in the beauty industry throwing these terms into their own conversations.