Under Your Skin, the Stockholm-based scalp and skincare brand, has partnered with the Research Institutes of Sweden on a toxicological hazard assessment to establish that beauty products are free of endocrine disruptors and safe for hormone health.
Endocrine disruptors or ingredients that interfere with the body’s normal hormone functions have been a big topic in the beauty industry, and clean beauty brands and retailers have sought to avoid them by banning certain ingredients from their formulas. The bans have encountered criticism for fearmongering about ingredients when evidence of endocrine disruption may be incomplete, insufficient and misinterpreted.
Under Your Skin and RISE have gone beyond clean beauty’s ingredient bans by creating a toxicological review process for finished beauty goods based upon testing methods recognized by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development for endocrine disruption as well as bioaccumulation, carcinogenicity and environmental biodegradability. For the past year, the brand’s hero products and core lines, including Density, Clean, Soothing Scalp Treatment and Face, were evaluated and deemed to be free from substances classified as carcinogenic or endocrine disrupting.
The review process is performed by RISE toxicologists specializing in chemical risk evaluation and environmental sciences. It integrates regulatory dossiers, peer-reviewed studies, supplier documentation and chemical safety databases. RISE routinely works with Nordic and European Union regulatory bodies on chemical safety and environmental testing.
“The clean beauty industry often stops at ingredient blacklists,” says Eileen O’Donoghue, CEO of Under Your Skin, in a statement. “We wanted proof at the product level, so we developed a process that tests every finished formula for its impact on both human health and the environment. The result: beauty designed for safety, for your body and the water it washes into.”
She tells Beauty Independent, “We created a first-of-its-kind testing standard confirming our products meet strict human and environmental criteria. We’re going live with RISE and telling people about this. We want [other brands] to go to them as well. You can clean up your stuff, too. You can check it. This is the new baseline.”
Charlotte Nilsson, senior toxicologist at RISE, says, “One of the most forward-thinking aspects of this partnership was the focus on hormone safety. It’s a growing public health concern. All evaluated products were found to be safe and made only with ingredients meeting strict safety and environmental criteria.”
Behnaz Erfani, another RISE toxicologist, adds, “Under Your Skin didn’t come to us for a simple seal of approval. They challenged us to raise the bar for what clean beauty can be. That made the collaboration especially exciting.”
If brands want their products to go through the toxicological review process, O’Donoghue shares the cost runs a couple thousand dollars per product. However, it depends on the number of ingredients in the product. Now that the process has been calibrated by Under Your Skin and RISE, O’Donoghue figures it takes around four months for a product to complete the process.
“This is the new baseline.”
Hormone safety has been part of Under Your Skin’s philosophy since it was founded by mother-daughter duo Christina and Lovisa Hahn in 2016. The brand was inspired by a hormonal imbalance that, at 20 years old, caused Lovisa to examine the chemicals she was putting on and in her body. It designs formulas to exclude ingredients such as parabens, artificial colors, synthetic fragrances, petrochemicals and microplastics.
In 2022, Tenth Avenue Holdings acquired a majority stake in Under Your Skin. Hello Products, the oral care company that sold to Colgate-Palmolive for $351 million in 2020, was previously in the firm’s portfolio. Tenth Avenue Holdings has invested $12 million in Under Your Skin and brought in O’Donoghue, former head of sales at Hello and sales strategy and operations lead at Tom’s of Maine, as CEO in April last year.
Under Your Skin is sold at leading pharmacies across Sweden and in Lyko stores. The brand boasts over 200,000 direct customers. The brand’s global distribution has tripled since last year, and it launched in Credo in the United States in November. Its future products will all follow the testing protocol it developed with RISE to validate their hormone safety.
In June, Under Your Skin introduced a three-ingredient non-aerosol dry shampoo that’s become its third bestseller in Sweden and the United States. In the first six months of this year, it’s doubled the sales it generated in 2024.
As Under Your Skin has expanded, it’s sought ways to set itself apart. “A big part of our mission is to rid personal care and beauty of toxic chemicals. How, besides our blacklist of things that we’re not doing, can we do that?” says O’Donoghue. “We were like, ‘Do we become a B Corp? Do we go 1% For the Planet?’ But none of this was helping with our mission, and there was nothing that did do it. And, so, we partnered with the leading research institute in Sweden. We told them, ‘We want to develop a methodology around a hormone safety benchmark to prove that this can be safe for your body and for the planet.’”
While clean beauty has been embroiled in controversy within the beauty industry as several cosmetic chemists, brand founders and in-the-know consumers argue it’s demonized chemicals without improving health outcomes, it continues to resonate with many consumers and show business strength. Market research firm Grand View Research projects the global clean beauty market will advance at a compound rate of almost 15% through 2030.
Consumer insights resource CivicScience describes clean beauty as having evolved from a “niche trend to an everyday marketing claim.” According to its survey data, 21% of U.S. adults report they read personal care product ingredient labels, up from 18% in 2023. Twenty-three percent of U.S. adults are very interested and 38% are somewhat interested in products made without potentially harmful ingredients. Fifty-four percent of 18- to 29-year-olds trust clean beauty branding versus 18% of adults over 65 years old.
“It almost feels like the whole U.S. is ready to clean up. Everyone’s like, maybe we shouldn’t have lime green gummy bears anymore,” says O’Donoghue. “We know this is really at a cultural bubble moment where consumers are going to come to it. Not only because it’s clean. Clean is the baseline to open in beauty. It’s beyond clean. We have these scientific claims, but the product needs to work. We don’t sacrifice performance, and we’re not going to say things just to have marketing. We wanted to stand behind what we meant by Under Your Skin.”
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