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We’ve totalled the numbers, done the research, and reviewed the ratings to bring you the highest rated beauty brands in Good On You’s directory. Scroll on to meet them and find out what the beauty industry’s sustainability is looking like as we enter 2026.
The state of the beauty industry as 2025 draws to a close
It’s been just over a year since Good On You launched beauty brand sustainability ratings and published the accompanying Scorecard: a first for us and a first for the industry, since no one else had scrutinised so many beauty brands’ public disclosures and actions around sustainability. The results were so concerning that they grabbed headlines in the likes of Business of Fashion and the Financial Times. Why? Because the beauty industry’s overwhelming lack of transparency was clear to see. And we uncovered questions about animal welfare commitments (like how 78% of the 239 brands surveyed don’t have any certification to show they’re not testing on animals); and issues like the majority (80%) of large brands not disclosing their progress in meeting greenhouse gas emissions targets, among many others.
Unfortunately, there’s been little improvement in the beauty industry’s transparency since then. More than 350 brand ratings (and rating reviews) later, analysis shows that over half (66%) of brands we’ve rated received our two lowest scores “We Avoid” or “Not Good Enough”. You’ll meet some of them further on. Meanwhile, just 7% of brands are rated “Good” or “Great”, and to help you navigate the complexities of beauty sustainability, we’ve listed the 10 highest rated of them below. It’s mostly small brands because, just like in fashion, while large beauty brands have disproportionate power to effect change in their direct operations and the wider supply chain, they’re often not taking nearly enough action—or at least not disclosing it. There are a handful of large brands in this list, though, and they’re the ones to keep an eye on for sustainability leadership in Big Beauty as we move beyond 2025—the year that so many sustainability targets were set for.
The role of Good On You’s ratings
A growing number of shoppers are better than ever at seeing through shallow and untrue sustainability claims made by companies in many consumer industries and are using their voices to demand positive change. Their journey often begins with checking a brand’s Good On You rating to get a sense of how the brand performs across its supply chain, not only for a few product-level claims.
Just like our fashion brand ratings, when Good On You’s analysts complete a beauty brand rating, they give the brand a score out of 100, which is an unweighted view of how a brand performs across the three key rating pillars (people, planet, and animals). They’re assessed based only on publicly available information to promote transparency across the beauty industry. We then group brands into a five-point rating scale to help you more easily identify who “We Avoid” (1/5) and who is “Good” (4/5) and “Great” (5/5).
Ratings for over 350 beauty brands are live on the directory and in the app, so it’s easier than ever to compare brands’ impacts on the issues that matter most. But if you’re wondering which brands stand out on both ends of the rating scale, read on to discover the lowest and the highest achievers based on our world-leading methodology.
The large beauty brands ‘We Avoid’
We proportionately apply more demanding standards to large brands as they inherently have greater impacts and influence, but even so, the vast majority of large brands rate poorly, and these are the 10 worst that we’ve rated so far.
Seven of them received exactly zero points—the lowest possible score—for their sustainability efforts. That means they aren’t being transparent and are disclosing little to no information about their practices.
- Re.Classified (“We Avoid”)
- Wow Beauty (“We Avoid”)
- Morphe (“We Avoid”)
- Druni (“We Avoid”)
- Primor (“We Avoid”)
- Mad Parfums (“We Avoid”)
- Loris Parfum (“We Avoid”)
- Ben Sherman (“We Avoid”)
- Dr Plant (“We Avoid”)
‘Good’ and ‘Great’ beauty brands
It’s important to call out brands doing poorly, but ultimately, our mission is to support the development of a more sustainable world by championing the brands that are working to do better, and that’s why we’re noting 10 of the highest rated brands here. There’s a vegan brand making just one product, a brand that champions anti-animal-testing, another that uses locally sourced ingredients, and many more. Scroll on to meet them all.
