We know exactly where our jeans are sewn. We can find the factory address online. Sometimes worker count. Sometimes wage data.

But ask your average beauty brand where their coconut oil comes from? Despite coconut farming being associated with child labor, poverty wages, and deforestation, most beauty and personal care brands who use it can't really tell you exactly where it's sourced, who farms it, what wages those farmers are paid, and the extent to which it’s contributed to deforestation.

After 8+ years of rating and featuring sustainable brands across a wide range of categories including beauty, fashion, furniture, home goods, I've noticed that sustainability focused fashion brands can generally trace their supply chains much further back than brands in other product categories. Not all of them, and not perfectly but the difference is stark.

For this newsletter, I'll focus on the beauty comparison, but know that furniture, home goods, and other product categories face similar transparency gaps.

Turns out, I'm not alone in noticing this…

Good on You's 2024 study of 239 cosmetic brands found that only 1% received their highest rating, while 63% were rated either "not good enough" or “we avoid”. Their ratings are based on public disclosures and transparency.

Comparing this report against the Fashion Transparency Index 2023:

Final Stage Production:

Second Stage Production (where materials/ingredients are refined):

Raw materials (where ingredients/materials originate):

This is obviously not a perfect comparison given we’re not checking the populations are perfectly like-for-like and there is a data and date mismatch. But the overall pattern is clear that fashion has been pushed further, faster.

Who’s to say for sure but let me offer a few potential reasons:

Fashion's broader sustainability scrutiny

Fashion has faced intense pressure not just on labor issues, but on its broader negative environmental impact (given its enormity) including carbon emissions, water pollution, textile waste, and microplastics. The 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse, which killed over 1,100 garment workers, became a galvanizing moment, but it was part of a longer pattern of scrutiny on multiple fronts.

This comprehensive pressure forced fashion to build more of a transparency infrastructure. Beauty hasn't faced the same breadth of scrutiny. Concerns tend to focus on specific issues (animal testing, specific banned ingredients) rather than systemic supply chain accountability.

"Trade secrets" and complexity

Beauty brands often cite proprietary formulations and "deeply protected trade secrets" as reasons for limited disclosure. The complexity of ingredient sourcing (with supply chains spanning from shea farmers in West Africa to fragrance houses in Grasse) makes it easy to claim that full transparency is "impossible."

Fashion faced similar complexity arguments. But public pressure and regulatory momentum pushed past them, forcing at least baseline manufacturing disclosure.

New regulations may start changing the game:

In the US: The Cosmetic Supply Chain Transparency Act has been introduced in Congress and would require upstream suppliers to provide brands with full ingredient disclosure, toxicity data, and certificates of analysis. While not yet law, it signals where regulation could be headed.

In Europe: Standardized Digital Product Passports are being produced for cosmetics, requiring transparent, verifiable information about ingredient sourcing, formulations, and sustainability data.

Consumer pressure: Reports say most consumers want stricter safety regulations in the beauty industry and most are willing to pay more for products that guarantee ingredient safety and ethical sourcing (though we all know about that say-do gap so take this with a pinch of salt)

From our ratings work, Oway stands out in beauty. They source many ingredients from their own biodynamic farm, and provide transparency about some other ingredient origins.

But even Oway doesn't provide the full picture. We still don't know the complete story of where every ingredient is farmed, water impacts, or biodiversity effects. And we don’t have clear specifics about their factory.

But they're ahead of most. The other beauty and personal care brands we've rated are doing impressive sustainability work, but none can yet match the supply chain detail that's becoming standard among leading sustainable fashion brands.

Whether you're in beauty, home goods, food, or furniture, fashion's experience offers a preview:

Transparency doesn't happen voluntarily at scale, but rather when:

The beauty (and other consumer) brands building transparency now are gaining strategic advantage including positive media coverage, investor confidence, and consumer trust.

Fashion isn't perfectly transparent but the industry was forced to start somewhere, and that momentum created infrastructure, expectations, and competitive pressure that's driving deeper disclosure, and ultimately positive change (albeit slowly).

Building transparency now presents an opportunity to lead!

I'm curious: How far back can you trace your supply chain? Do you have a different view or perspective on this? Hit reply, I’d love to go deeper.