The word clean has lost its leverage in skincare, where shoppers now ask for clinical evidence before they ask what was left out.
Brands are responding by splitting their lines, with clinical skincare under one architecture and sensory fragrance and colour under another.
Regulation adds pressure, since greenwashing rules in Europe now require substantiation for claims that were once marketing shorthand.
Clean is no longer a category, it is a register, and brands that use it everywhere will sound like they are saying nothing.
