Ulta Is Making It Easier For You To Shop For Vegan and Clean Beauty

Ulta made shopping for sustainable beauty products a lot easier for its customers. As beauty brands and retailers continue to modify their practices to be more environmentally-friendly, Ulta unveiled a new initiative that allows shoppers to know exactly which brands are vegan, sustainable, clean, and cruelty-free.

As part of its new Conscious Beauty category, Ulta will now label which of its products it considers clean — meaning an exclusion of parabens, phthalates, and other ingredients — cruelty-free, vegan and sustainable. An additional category of the Conscious Beauty umbrella also highlights products making a positive impact, meaning brands that give proceeds to charitable initiatives, or give back to the community.

Along with this new spotlight on other brands, Ulta is making changes of its own, Popsugar reports. By 2025, the beauty retailer pledges to carry 50 percent of packaging that's made of recycled, refillable, or bio-sourced materials.

An accompanying website for the new Ulta initiative has already added a brand spotlight for some of the categories. Shoppers can easily navigate each of the categories, discovering products and brands that adhere to the new standards.

Ulta previously followed a "natural beauty" category, Teen Vogue reports, but there wasn't as much information on what that meant for shoppers. Sephora currently has a clean beauty category on its website, and products that meet its standards are given a special seal. Along with creating its own eco-conscious skincare line, Sephora continues to work on reducing its energy consumption and emissions.