Transparency trend comes to cosmetics

More and more, people are concerned with the ingredients of the products they use. Watchwords these days are "natural," "organic," "chemical-free," "small-batch" and the like. Many companies are responding by creating products with more natural ingredients. Unfortunately in the cosmetics industry, however, there is still a lot of opacity. Full disclosure is not required on labels and consumers often don't know what they are putting on their bodies. Now websites and mobile apps are popping up that answer this trend towards transparency by showing people what is actually in the products they use. Think Dirty is one good example of this kind of app as it lists the ingredients of almost 70,000 products. Scan the barcode of a cosmetic in the shop before you buy it and it's easy to determine if the product is filled with possibly harmful chemicals. These days, if products don't tell us themselves what they contain, third parties will fill the void. There is no more hiding.