Stripping brands of their cult marketing: Glossier
Doing what most brands hope consumers won’t: taking a look at what's under the hood.
Glossier revolutionised the beauty industry and became the blueprint for modern beauty brands today. A key part of Glossier’s success lay in solving a problem that other beauty companies at the time had failed to address: how to reach young consumers through a direct-to-consumer model.
Rather than focusing on what a product does, Glossier built its brand around how a product makes a person feel. At a time when buying beauty products felt passive and impersonal, Glossier flipped the script, creating a brand rooted in community-driven feedback. Beyond its millennial pink aesthetic and the now-iconic bubble wrap makeup bag, Glossier marketed itself as more than just a beauty company—it became a social club. Customers weren’t just purchasing products; they were joining a movement.
When Glossier launched in 2014, this type of social-first marketing was considered groundbreaking. The brand understood that feeling part of the club was crucial to long-term success—more so than the actual ingredient formulations, which at the time, most consumers weren’t scrutinising.
Fast forward to 2023, and the landscape had changed. With “clean” beauty brands like Saie and Kosas dominating retail spaces such as Sephora, Glossier felt pressure to reformulate its best-selling products to meet the “clean beauty standards” created by these retailers. However, this shift led to a sudden decline in product quality and consumer trust. Longtime fans noticed the difference—and they weren’t happy.
In an effort to regain loyalty and maintain its brand reputation, Glossier was forced to reintroduce old formulas of its most beloved products. But with high-performance competitors using non-controversial formulations on the rise, does Glossier still hold the same cultural relevance it once did? and is the rebrand actually a competitor for “cleaner” brands on the market, or is this just another cash-grab strategy?
To find out, let’s do what most brands hope consumers won’t: take a deeper dive into Glossier’s most popular products and see if their new formulations live up to their clean* rebrand.
*it’s worth noting that product labels like “vegan,” “clean” or “natural” do not have a formal definition nor is it regulated by FDA, but for consistency purposes I will refer to ‘clean’ meaning ‘minimum-to-no considered controversial ingredients’.
BALM DOTCOM
Balm Dotcom is one of Glossier’s most iconic products and a staple for many who were just beginning to explore makeup. Often considered a gateway product, it introduced countless millennials and Gen Z consumers to beauty in a way that felt enjoyable rather than a chore.
When it first launched, beauty marketing was dominated by high-performance claims and luxury positioning. In contrast, Balm Dotcom was presented as a multi-use essential designed to fit seamlessly into everyday life. Instead of promising dramatic transformations, Glossier embraced a “skin first, makeup second” philosophy, celebrating natural beauty in a way that resonated deeply with younger audiences.
In 2023, Glossier reformulated Balm Dotcom to comply with Sephora’s “clean beauty standards” and made the product 100% vegan. However, after widespread complaints from loyal customers—many citing that the new formula felt inferior and separated easily—Glossier announced the return of the “OG formula.” In reality, this meant reintroducing lanolin & beeswax, effectively reversing the vegan claim. While these ingredients now align better with consumer expectations and “clean beauty” perceptions, a closer look at the full ingredient list reveals that the product is still far from truly natural.
Potentially concerning ingredients remain:
Petrolatum (if not fully refined): May contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are considered as potential carcinogens.
Flavor/Aroma (lack of transparency): The vague listing raises concerns, as synthetic fragrance compounds have been linked to hormone disruption.
BHT: A controversial preservative with potential endocrine-disrupting properties and mild carcinogenic concerns.
Perhaps the most surprising inclusion—considering Glossier’s attempt to rebrand as “clean”—is BHT. The EU and UK enforce strict regulations on BHT percentages in cosmetics, with the UK implementing even stricter laws this year due to increasing research on its hormone-disrupting effects. In the US, however, the FDA does not set specific concentration limits, leaving safety largely in the hands of manufacturers.
What makes this particularly concerning is the fact that Balm Dotcom is applied to the lips, leading to inadvertent ingestion over time. Given Glossier’s marketing approach, which encourages product loyalty and long-term use, the cumulative effect of daily exposure raises questions about whether this formulation truly aligns with their ‘cleaner’ rebrand.
CLOUD PAINT
When Glossier launched Cloud Paint, its gel-cream blush, it wasn’t just selling a makeup product—it was creating an experience that felt playful, effortless, and highly shareable. Unlike traditional powder blushes housed in compacts, Cloud Paint came in a soft, paint-like tube, instantly making it feel artistic and fun. The packaging, inspired by watercolor palettes and paint tubes, spoke directly to a younger audience that valued creativity, self-expression, and aesthetically pleasing beauty products. This thoughtful design positioned Cloud Paint as more than just a blush—it became an object of desire, something to be proudly displayed on vanities and shared across social media.
In 2023, Glossier reformulated Cloud Paint, removing several ingredients, which was potentially a response to evolving health, ethical, and transparency concerns. For improved transparency and ethical practices, carmine—a pigment derived from crushed cochineal insects—was eliminated, making the formula fully vegan. The removal of ultramarines, a mined pigment, may also reflect a shift toward more ethically sourced ingredients.
Despite these changes, the reformulated Cloud Paint still contains a few ingredients that raise concerns within “clean beauty” standards:
PEG-10 Dimethicone: Carries a potential risk of contamination with 1,4-dioxane, a suspected carcinogen, if not properly purified.
Mica: While widely used in cosmetics, it has a risk of heavy metal contamination + has significant ethical concerns due to child labor and unsafe working conditions in mining regions (not clear if this is ethically sourced).
Although the new formula appears simplified, the presence of these ingredients highlights the ongoing challenge of balancing performance, ethics, and consumer expectations in the evolving beauty landscape.
MILK JELLY CLEANSER
Instead of marketing skincare as a problem-solving necessity, Glossier’s Milky Jelly Cleanser positioned itself as a pleasurable, gentle ritual—using words like “hydrating,” “skin-friendly,” and “gentle” to reinforce the idea that skincare should be simple and enjoyable.
The cleanser’s soft, minimalistic branding and dewy, translucent texture made it instantly Instagrammable, encouraging organic word-of-mouth promotion. But what truly set it apart was Glossier’s co-creation approach—rather than relying on top-down messaging, the brand actively involved its community in the development process. Readers of Into The Gloss were asked what their ideal cleanser would look like, making consumers feel invested in the brand from day one.
In 2023, Glossier reformulated Milky Jelly Cleanser, removing several ingredients—likely in an effort to align with clean beauty standards. While these changes reflect a deliberate effort to meet modern expectations—emphasising safer preservatives, fewer synthetic compounds, and a more consumer-friendly ingredient list—some controversial ingredients remain:
Symphytum Officinale (Comfrey) Root Extract: Contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs), which can be toxic in large amounts if absorbed or ingested. PAs are a group of secondary metabolites in plants associated with potential health risks. Although the risks are primarily associated with oral ingestion, concerns have arisen for topical applications as well. Regulatory agencies worldwide have varying stances on the safety of ‘comfrey’ in personal care products, with governing bodies in some countries imposing dosage/usage restrictions.
Sodium Benzoate: While generally safe, it can form benzene (a known carcinogen) when combined with ascorbic acid (Vitamin C).
These remaining ingredients highlight an important tension in the clean beauty space—just because an ingredient is “naturally derived” doesn’t mean it’s automatically safer, and just because something is synthetic doesn’t mean it’s harmful. Given the abundance of proven, safe, soothing, antioxidant-rich natural ingredients available for use in skin care formulas, there’s no reason for Glossier to gamble with including these ingredients in their formulations.
Many beauty brands—not just Glossier—are scrambling to maintain their spot at the hot girl table (Sephora) by rebranding as “clean”. But more often than not, this means highlighting a few natural-sounding ingredients while quietly tucking a long list of less desirable ingredients into a dropdown menu, hoping consumers won’t bother to look too closely.
If brands are removing some questionable ingredients, why not go all the way? If doing so compromises the formula, perhaps Glossier’s formulations were never as sophisticated as those of newer competitors such as Saie or Drunk Elephant—brands that have managed to create majority products with minimum controversial ingredients without sacrificing performance.
A step in the right direction for Glossier would be greater transparency—making ingredient lists more digestible by allowing customers to hover over each ingredient for a simple explanation of its function.
Right now, the brand seems to be in an identity crisis, torn between keeping old loyal fans happy while also appealing to a new generation of consumers who are paying closer attention to what they put on their skin. Whether Glossier can successfully balance both remains unclear for now.
Ending note:
Synthetic products from reputable brands that comply with strict EU and FDA regulations are generally considered safe due to rigorous testing standards. Personally, I choose to avoid products containing PEG compounds, BHT or synthetic fragrance. For me, the potential risks aren't worth it, especially with so many other synthetic brands offering high-performing alternatives without these ingredients. Ultimately, the key takeaway from this article is to highlight how clever marketing can sometimes overshadow our autonomy in making informed purchase decisions.
Resources used for this article (+ each ingredient has a linked source throughout):
I’ve been looking for cloud paint alternatives and now, I have even more reason to. Thanks for sharing!
Being someone who mainly reads content about fashion, this article really encouraged to read more beauty-related works. I love the way you did a deep dive and made things understandable for someone like me who doesn't know all the proper terminology of certain ingredients and what they do.