Brand Breakdown: Is Ilia a Clean Beauty Brand?
Background on Ilia
Ilia Beauty is where skincare and makeup collide. Founded by Sasha Plavsic, with her mother’s encouragement and brother’s asthma and allergies on the line, she challenged herself to create a clean lip balm full of healthy ingredients.
Sasha with Ilia, enjoys paving the way of beauty innovation. Where they challenge the conventions of clean beauty to create something radically new—through safe, potent formulas that protect that revive your skin.
Is Ilia as clean as they claim to be? We reviewed the brand to find out.
How we Rank the Brand
Green Heart – We approve of this brand’s products and they contain zero known toxins.
Yellow Heart – We approve of most ingredients in this brand’s products, they might contain some toxins or known allergies.
Red Heart – We suggest you proceed with caution and limit your expose and use to this brand’s products as there are toxins present.
Ingredients of Ilia
Ilia claims to “challenge the conventions of clean beauty to create something radically new, through safe, potent formulas that protect and revive your skin.”
Their products are a hybrid of natural and organic ingredients, active botanicals and synthetics. All ILIA products are free of Parabens, Phthalates, Sulfates, and Talc among many other substances. They state they will continue to educate further on why they believe not every natural ingredient is good for the skin, and not every synthetic is bad.
Below you will see a snapshot of their Super Serum Skin Tint ingredients.
Breaking Down the Ingredients
While most of Ilia’s ingredients are clean or non-toxic, we found some minimal ingredients that we do not recommend for those with allergies, sensitivities, or dermatitis.
Phenoxyethanol
Phenoxyethanol is a preservative that’s used in skincare products to prevent bacteria growth. It’s considered safe for use in small concentrations, but some people may be sensitive to it. Ilia uses phenoxyethanol as a preservative in just 2 of their products (Balmy Gloss Tinted Lip Oil and Clean Line Liquid Liner).
Synthetic Dyes/ Colorants
Ilia products do contain some synthetic dyes/ colorants, typically in their lip shades. Their website states, “Food Grade dye is a synthetic form of color and the choice to use Food Grade Dye was chosen when formulating certain shades in order to obtain a stronger hue. The majority of the product is made up of natural mineral dyes, yet some do contain low percentages (2% or less) of food grade dye.”
Heavy Metals/ PFAS
Heavy metals seem to be tested at their internal facilities but not by a third-party organization. They test Lead, Mercury, Cadmium and Arsenic and Antimony. Their findings are: 1ppm for Mercury; 3ppm for cadmium and arsenic; and 5ppm for lead and antimony. However, Mamavation has done testing on Ilia Balmy Gloss Tinted Lip Oil (Saint) which has 35 ppm organic fluorine and ILIA True Skin Serum Foundation (SF13.5 Flores) which had 404 ppm organic fluorine. To which we would say is high, as anything above 30 parts-per-million (ppm) we consider high. Overall, their foundation is still a better option than most.
Going Beyond Beauty
Sustainability
Ilia is all about giving back to mother nature. Their website states they commit 1% of Super Serum Skin Tint SPF 40 sales to environmental causes—starting with reforestation. Their goal is to plant 1 million trees by the end of 2023 in partnership with One Tree Planted. They offer a free recycling service of e10 mpty makeup jars, theirs or someone else’s, a month.
Giving Back
They plant trees in Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador as part of giving back and sustainability.
Cruelty- Free
Ilia products are cruelty-free and Leaping Bunny certified.
Vegan
All but 6 Ilia products are vegan.
Non-vegan products: Limitless Lash Mascara, Fullest Volumizing Mascara, Balmy Tint Hydrating Lip Balm, Lip Wrap Hydrating Mask, Multi-Sticks, Balmy Days
Certified Organic?
Ilia is not certified organic.
Where is it Manufactured?
Most ILIA Beauty products are made in the U.S. with the exception of the below:
Made in Canada: Balmy Gloss Tinted Lip Oil
Made in China: All Brushes
Made in Italy: Blue Light Face Mist, Color Haze, Fullest Volumizing Mascara, Liquid Light Highlighting Serum, Liquid Powder Eye Tint, and Limitless Lash Mascara,
Made in Korea: Clean Line Gel Liner, Clean Line Liquid Liner
Parent Company
ILIA is owned by Clarins.
Final Rating:
While Ilia does have a few ingredients that we would deem questionable, we believe that through their transparency and that not all their products contain said ingredients, we would recommend this Brand.
