The Best Vegan Beauty Brands To Try Right Now

Plenty of us look for specific performance requirements when choosing our beauty products, like full-coverage foundation, volumising mascara or lightweight moisturiser.

But increasingly, the label ‘vegan’ is sought out as a key purchasing factor as consumers take a more conscious approach to their beauty routines.

What is vegan beauty?

Vegan beauty products are made without ingredients derived from animals or animal by-products. They’re just like the beauty products you already know and love, but without any ingredients that come from animal sources.

But what kind of ingredients in beauty aren’t vegan? Some common ones include dairy, honey, carmine, marine collagen, silk and snail extracts. Other ingredients can be derived from either animal or vegan sources, such as lactic acid, squalane, biotin and peptides.

In the past, following this vegan beauty approach has meant scouring ingredient lists to find vegan-friendly options out there. Now, there’s a much better understanding of what vegan means and commitment from brands to to clearly denote on products when they meet the requirements of being labelled vegan.

The best vegan beauty brands

In fact, now it’s far easier to find products as many brands are now making the commitment to ensure their whole product lineup is vegan. Far from a niche ideal, some of the world’s hottest beauty brands are embracing the approach, keeping their products – from eye shadows and lipsticks to face and body products and more – free from animal products.

While there is an abundance to choose from these days, these are some of our favourite vegan beauty brands.

Florence By Mills

Florence By Mills has been crowned social media’s leading vegan beauty brand. Since being founded in 2019 by actor Millie Bobby Brown, the playful and colourful Florence by Mills makeup and skincare line has leapt to extraordinary heights of popularity, amassing 3.2 million followers on Instagram and another 3.7 million on TikTok

Aesop

Created in Melbourne Australia, this stylish botanically-based skin, body and fragrance line is known for it’s luxurious natural formulations and stylish, minimal packaging. We always love paying a visit to its beautifully designed stores (each one is unique and created by local architects and designers taking into account local community, history and culture) to stock up our bathroom and vanity cabinet.

Rare Beauty

Rare Beauty, owned by singer Selena Gomez, has also made a mark on the beauty landscape with high-performance makeup and skincare products that transcend any previously-held notions around celebrity beauty brands. You can’t go past the liquid blush and Tinted Lip oil, but we also love the brand’s commitment to raising awareness and funds for youth mental health, too.

e.l.f. Cosmetics

On-trend, affordable and kind to animals? Check, check and check. A go-to for hip, wallet-friendly beauty buys, many people don’t know every product e.l.f. makes is vegan too!

Aleph Beauty

Created to be natural, ethical as possible, 100% cruelty-free, vegan, and people and planet friendly, Kiwi brand Aleph is perfect for easy going makeup that can be applied in a flash using your fingers as well as a selection of skincare to boost your routine.

Inika Organic

Aussie brand Inika has beautifully-made clean and green products that are organic and 100% vegan too. There are plenty of skincare products on offer but we think where they really shine are the powder products, like mineral powder foundation, highlighter, blush and bronzer.

Tronque

New Zealand bod ycare brand Tronque is luxe in formulation and design. Its ethos is skincare for below the neck to the tip of your toes and it seriously delivers. The latest development is a natural deodorant that’s actually refillable too.

Haus Labs

Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs makeup, founded in 2019, is lauded for its pro-worthy performance and beautiful seamless finishes for each product. The brand’s success has been partly attributed to it being the first significant beauty line to launch on Amazon exclusively.

MECCA MAX

An affordable house line from beauty giant retailer MECCA, this range has a selection of products that follow trends in both product formulation and shade selection.

Kester Black

We know them for their ultra-cool shades of nail polish, but Kester Black also has a great skincare line and lots of nail care products too and you guessed it, they are all vegan!

Hourglass

The ultra-luxe makeup brand didn’t start out vegan but transformed all its products to vegan formulas by 2020. That means our favourite setting powder and blurring, illuminating powders, not to mention the elite new liquid blush, are safe for our vegan friends to use.

Fenty Beauty

Leave it to Rihanna to tick every box! The incredible beauty brand has such a wide scope of products and inclusive shade ranges and the superstar has ensured every product is vegan too, in line for its etho of ‘beauty for all.’