Before stepping into the harrowing world of beauty, founders Selvie Jusman and Nico Yosman set out to research the market and quickly learnt that the clean beauty movement was the dominant trend.
Despite that, the Indonesian duo decided against climbing aboard the clean beauty bandwagon.
“As we dug a little bit deeper, we realised that [clean beauty brands] – I’m trying to be nice – didn’t seem very accurate in terms of their messaging,” said Yosman.
In fact, both Yosman and Jusman believe that the clean movement is on its last legs and will make way for brands that are rooted in science.
“Experts in the beauty community have been pushing back… and it's not much easier for consumers to get scientific answers to their beauty questions… It is safe to say that the day of [clean beauty’s] super growth is probably over,” said Jusman.
In June, Deciem, the company behind The Ordinary and NIOD, kicked off its ‘Everything is Chemicals’ campaign which directly challenged the authenticity of clean beauty brands – promptly riling them up in the process.
Referencing this debacle, Yosman said the brand is not interesting in dividing consumers and simply want to offer an alternate choice.
“At the end of the day, skin care is something that I think should be fun, should be an indulgence for the customer, they should enjoy doing it. So, I think there’s no point dividing consumers like that.”
He added that he would oppose any regulation against ‘free-from’ claims like the European Union had set up in 2019.
“It’s probably there to protect consumers from fearmongering, but at the same time, we live in a free market and I think consumers have an option to choose the stuff that they like… it would be unfair for us to say you can’t have this or that.”
To find out more about Selvie, Nico and 5 to 5 Skincare, check out the full episode above or on Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts.
