New Delhi [India], September 4: There is a new language dominating the beauty and personal-care industry: natural, clean, organic, plant-based, sulphate-free, paraben-free, toxin-free. Consumers are hearing more about what products don’t contain than ever before. But perhaps the more important question is one that is being asked less often: What exactly is inside the product?
That is the question Neelam Rathee, affectionately known as Nani, and founder of BIOMUNI, believes the beauty industry needs to confront.
At 69, when many expected her to slow down, Nani chose to build BIOMUNI, an Ayurveda-inspired clean beauty brand, and decided that consumers should not have to decode marketing language to understand what they are putting on their bodies.
Her position is particularly relevant today as ingredient transparency becomes an increasingly visible part of the FMCG and personal-care conversation.
Beco’s recent #WarOnWhatsHidden campaign, for instance, raises questions around what may be hidden or not revealed to consumers. But equally important is revealing what is actually there in the product, without hiding behind umbrella terms such as “natural bio-enzymes,” “coconut-based surfactants” or “plant-based formula.” The question is not only what is missing from a product, but also what is actually inside it.
“Transparency is not just about pointing out that one particular ingredient is not in a product. If you are going to tell consumers what is not there, shouldn’t you also tell them what is actually there? Selectively highlighting one ingredient that is absent, without disclosing the complete list of ingredients, is not complete transparency,” asks Nani.
The difference between “free from” and full disclosure
“Sulphate-free.” “Paraben-free.” “Natural.” “Plant-based.” These claims can be useful. They can help consumers make choices based on their preferences. But they don’t necessarily provide the complete picture. A product can tell you what it excludes without telling you enough about what it actually contains.
For Nani, that distinction is fundamental. “Don’t just tell consumers what you don’t use. alos, tell them what you do”, adds Nani. It is a philosophy that challenges an industry where marketing has often become better at highlighting the absence of certain controversial ingredients than explaining the presence of everything else.
Take broad ingredient descriptions. Terms such as “coconut-based surfactants” or “natural bio-enzymes” may communicate an ingredient’s source or category, but they don’t necessarily tell a consumer which specific substances are being used.
The same question applies when formulation information is available on a website but not clearly presented on the product itself. Should a consumer have to scan a QR code, visit a website, search through product information, and interpret marketing claims simply to understand what is inside the bottle? Or should the bottle tell them?
Nani believes the answer should be obvious.
The label should not be a teaser
For decades, the product label has been one of the most important sources of information available to a consumer. Yet increasingly, labels are also becoming marketing real estate. They promise purity. They showcase hero ingredients. They announce what has been removed. What if the label also became the place where brands demonstrated their transparency? That means moving beyond broad claims and giving consumers clear, specific ingredient information in a way they can actually understand.
Because compliance, certification and transparency are not the same thing.
References to standards such as IFRA or Ecocert can provide valuable information about particular ingredients, raw materials or processes. But a certification or compliance reference does not automatically amount to a complete ingredient disclosure.
Whether an ingredient meets a particular safety or compliance standard is one question. Whether the consumer can clearly identify that ingredient as part of the formulation is another.
“Safety is important. Certification is important. But transparency deserves to stand on its own. This is where BIOMUNI is taking a different approach of 100% transparency”, says the founder.
Rather than asking consumers to simply trust the promise on the front of a bottle, BIOMUNI has built its product philosophy around disclosure. Its Ayurveda-inspired clean beauty formulations are designed with a simple principle: tell consumers what is actually in the product.
That philosophy is visible on the label itself. From its Hard Water Damage Repair Shampoo to its growing range of hair and skincare products, BIOMUNI lists its ingredients on the product label, putting the information where the consumer expects to find it- in their hands. The same complete ingredient information is also available on the BIOMUNI website, www.biomuni.com, in one place, so consumers can see what is inside the product on the website as well as on the product label itself.
The distinction may seem straightforward, but it represents a different way of thinking about beauty marketing. The consumer shouldn’t have to choose between a beautiful product and an informed choice. They shouldn’t have to understand chemistry to ask a basic question. And they shouldn’t have to take a brand’s word for what “clean” or “natural” means.
They should simply be given the information.
Perhaps transparency needs a new definition. The beauty industry has spent enormous amounts of time and money telling consumers what products are free from. The next evolution may be about telling them what products actually contain. That is a harder promise to make because it leaves less room for ambiguity. But perhaps that is precisely why it matters.
For Nani, transparency isn’t a campaign theme. It is a standard. And perhaps the simplest test of that standard is this: Don’t just tell consumers what you don’t use. Tell them what you do.
“Because if transparency is important enough to put on a billboard, it should be important enough to put on the bottle label”, says Nani.
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