Brand Breakdown
Is Ogee a Clean Beauty Brand?
Ogee has become one of the most recognizable names in luxury clean beauty, particularly for its creamy complexion sticks, sculpting products and skincare-infused makeup. The brand pairs the look and feel of traditional luxury beauty with something we don’t see nearly as often: certified organic formulas.
But at Oh Daisey, an organic certification isn’t an automatic approval. We still want to know what’s actually inside the products.
So we took a closer look at Ogee’s formulas, certifications and ingredient philosophy to see how the brand measures up.
The Ogee Brand Story
Ogee was founded in Vermont in 2014 by Mark Rice, Abbott Stark and Alex Stark, bringing together backgrounds in luxury fashion, beauty formulation and business.
The idea was to create something that was surprisingly difficult to find at the time: high-performance beauty products that could deliver the experience of luxury skincare and makeup while meeting legitimate organic standards.
Ogee spent more than two years developing its first formulas and obtaining organic certification before officially launching its products in 2016. Since then, the brand has expanded from skincare into makeup, becoming especially well known for its complexion and sculpting sticks.
Today, Ogee remains headquartered in Burlington, Vermont, with its products blended, filled, certified and packaged in the United States.
What Ogee Claims About their Ingredients
Ogee describes its approach as going “Beyond Clean Beauty,” with a particular emphasis on natural-origin and certified organic ingredients. More importantly, the brand backs up many of those claims with third-party certification.
Ogee says its collection is certified organic to the NSF Personal Care Standard, which requires products carrying the certification to meet defined standards for organic ingredients and manufacturing.
The brand also says its formulas are made without synthetic fragrance, parabens, phthalates, petrochemicals, silicones, plastic microbeads and synthetic preservatives.
Instead, Ogee builds its formulas around ingredients like organic jojoba oil, olive oil, coconut oil, aloe, plant extracts, botanical waxes and mineral pigments.
That combination of certification and ingredient transparency is something we like to see.
Inside Ogee's Ingredients
Ogee’s formulas are surprisingly straightforward for high-performance makeup.
Take the brand’s popular Sculpted Face Stick. Its base includes organic olive oil, beeswax, organic jojoba seed oil and organic coconut oil alongside plant-derived alkanes, carnauba wax, green coffee oil, tapioca starch, elderberry extract and vitamin E.
Depending on the shade, mineral pigments including iron oxides, mica and titanium dioxide provide the color.
Ogee says the Sculpted Face Stick is 100% natural and contains 83% organic ingredients, an unusually high percentage for a color cosmetic.
Across the rest of the collection, you’ll find the same general philosophy: botanical oils and extracts paired with naturally derived ingredients selected to create the texture and performance we’d normally expect from conventional luxury makeup.
We also appreciate what’s missing. Synthetic fragrance is one of our biggest concerns at Oh Daisey because a single “fragrance” or “parfum” listing can represent an undisclosed mixture of ingredients. Ogee specifically states that it does not use synthetic fragrance, instead relying on the natural scent of its botanical ingredients.
Overall, the ingredient lists are considerably more transparent and thoughtfully formulated than what we typically see in conventional makeup.
Anything We'd Change?
Not much, but there are a few things worth knowing.
Some Ogee makeup shades use titanium dioxide (CI 77891) as a mineral pigment. Titanium dioxide is an ingredient where exposure route matters, and our concerns are greater with inhalable powders than with a cream or stick product. Still, it’s an ingredient we prefer to evaluate within the context of the individual formula rather than automatically approving it everywhere it appears.
You’ll also find carmine (CI 75470) in certain shades. Carmine is a colorant derived from cochineal insects. It isn’t necessarily a toxicity concern in the same way as many synthetic dyes, but it does mean those particular shades aren’t vegan, something worth knowing if that’s important to you.
And while Ogee doesn’t use synthetic fragrance, botanical ingredients can naturally contain aromatic compounds that may still be irritating for particularly sensitive or fragrance-reactive skin. “Natural” doesn’t automatically mean non-irritating.
We’d also love to see even more ingredient-specific sourcing information across the collection as the brand continues to grow.
None of these are major red flags for us, but they’re good examples of why we still prefer evaluating the complete ingredient list rather than relying on a clean or organic label alone.
Our Verdict
Ogee is Oh Daisey Approved.
The combination of certified organic ingredients, transparent formulas, third-party organic certification and the brand’s avoidance of many ingredients on our Dirty List makes Ogee one of the stronger luxury makeup brands we’ve reviewed.
We’re particularly impressed by the makeup collection. Creating complexion products with the texture, pigment and finish consumers expect from conventional luxury makeup, while keeping formulas largely botanical and organic, isn’t particularly easy.
That doesn’t mean every ingredient or shade will be right for every person. Certain products contain beeswax, carmine or naturally aromatic botanicals, and we still recommend looking at individual formulas if you have specific sensitivities.
But overall? Ogee is a brand we feel comfortable recommending.
At a Glance
Founded: 2014 by Mark Rice, Abbott Stark and Alex Stark.
Cruelty Free/ Vegan: Cruelty-free and Leaping Bunny certified. The brand is not entirely vegan, products including the Sculpted Face Stick contain beeswax, and certain shades may contain carmine.
Certified Organic: Yes. Ogee states that its collection is certified organic to the NSF Personal Care Standard. Individual products also disclose their percentage of organic ingredients; for example, the Sculpted Face Stick is listed as 83% organic.
Sustainability: Ogee emphasizes sustainably sourced ingredients, organic agriculture and more environmentally conscious manufacturing. Products are packaged in the United States using 100% recycled paperboard, and the brand supports organic farming initiatives.
Parent Company: No parent company identified. Ogee is a privately held company and has received outside investment.
Manufactured: United States. Ogee states that its products are blended, filled, certified and packaged in the USA, while ingredients are sourced globally.
Giving Back: Ogee supports the Organic Farming Research Foundation, an organization focused on advancing organic agriculture through research, education and advocacy.
Oh Daisey Rating
OhDaisey Approved!
Where to Start
Curious where to begin? These are the products that stood out based on ingredient quality, formulation and overall usability.
