We’re Ranked #1 by Good on You

Let us be­gin with a lit­tle bit of hon­esty: it’s been a while since we posted on our blog. While oth­er brands have been churn­ing out AI gen­er­ated con­tent and flood­ing feeds with their latest launches, we’ve been qui­eter. But that’s not by ac­ci­dent. Our con­sci­en­tious ethos means we move at a dif­fer­ent pace. We don’t rush to re­lease pro­duc­ts, and we don’t cre­ate noise just to stay vis­i­ble. We only speak when we have some­thing mean­ing­ful to say. And to­day, we do.

We’re thrilled to share that Dis­rup­tor Lon­don has been ranked num­ber one by Good on You as the high­est-rated beauty brand in their in­au­gur­al beauty sus­tain­abil­ity score­card. Out of more than 239 brands as­sessed, we’ve earned a ‘Great’ rat­ing. We're very proud to be one of the only two brands glob­al­ly to achieve this dis­tinc­tion. This recog­ni­tion val­i­dates every­thing we’ve been work­ing to­ward since we started back in Jan­u­ary 2021: cre­at­ing per­son­al care pro­duc­ts that gen­uinely put peo­ple and planet be­fore profit.

This recog­ni­tion val­i­dates every­thing we’ve been build­ing since those dark times dur­ing COV­ID when both of us, Sira and Juan, were dis­cussing were to take our lives next. We’re thrilled, hum­bled, and ready to re-en­gage with you and our com­mu­nity. This blog post marks a re­newed com­mit­ment to trans­parency and di­a­logue. Af­ter all, if we’re going to dis­rupt an in­dus­try, we need you with us.

Good on You: A Decade of Trans­parency, Now Shin­ing Light on Beauty

For those un­fa­mil­i­ar, Good On You has spent ten years es­tab­lish­ing it­self as fash­ion’s most trusted source of sus­tain­abil­ity rat­ings, as­sess­ing more than 6,000 fash­ion brands based on pub­li­cly avail­able data. Mil­lions of con­scious shop­pers, ma­jor re­tail­ers, and tech plat­for­ms rely on their rat­ings to make in­formed de­ci­sions. In 2024, they ex­panded into beauty, a sec­tor that has long lagged be­hind fash­ion when it comes to trans­parency and ac­count­abil­ity.

Un­like paid cer­ti­fi­ca­tions or mar­ket­ing badges, Good on You’s rat­ings are com­pletely in­de­pen­dent. You can’t buy your way onto their score­card. In­stead, you earn your place through ver­i­fi­able ac­tion. Their rig­or­ous method­ology eval­u­ates brands on up to 1,000 data points across three key pil­lars: peo­ple, planet, and an­i­mals. They as­s­ess every­thing from worker safety and liv­ing wages to green­house gas emis­sions, wa­ter use, pack­ag­ing waste, mi­croplas­tics pol­lu­tion, and an­i­mal wel­fare. Their as­sess­ment cov­ers a brand’s en­tire val­ue chain from raw ma­te­ri­als to what hap­pens when pro­duc­ts wash down the drain.

The method­ology was de­vel­oped in con­sul­ta­tion with in­dus­try ex­perts, aca­d­e­mics, and or­ga­ni­za­tions in­clud­ing Fash­ion Rev­o­lu­tion, Fair­trade, Fash­ion for Good, and Four Paws. Every rat­ing draws from pub­li­cly avail­able in­for­ma­tion: brands’ own dis­clo­sures, third-party in­dices like CDP Cli­mate Change and Wa­ter Se­cu­rity re­ports, and cer­ti­fi­ca­tions in­clud­ing GOTS, COS­MOS OR­GANIC, and UEBT. This isn’t green­wash­ing the­ater; it’s ac­count­abil­ity back­ed by data.

What makes Good on You’s ap­proach par­tic­u­lar­ly pow­er­ful is its com­mit­ment to trans­parency: they only use pub­li­cly re­ported in­for­ma­tion be­cause, as they put it,

it’s fun­da­men­tal to con­sumer rights that brands ful­ly, ac­cu­rately, and con­sis­tently re­port on their im­pacts.

This trans­parency pro­motes ac­count­abil­ity and helps keep brands honest about their promises.

Their first Beauty Sus­tain­abil­ity Score­card re­vealed some sober­ing truths about the in­dus­try. Of 239 brands rated, only 1% achieved a ‘Great’ rat­ing, while 53% were rated ‘Not Good Enough’ and 10% earned the lowest ‘We Avoid’ rat­ing. When it comes to labour prac­tices, not a single brand scored ‘Great’, and only one achieved ‘Good’. As sad as they are, these num­bers are not some­thing we did­n't sus­pect. In fact, one of our biggest mo­ti­va­tors to start Dis­rup­tor Lon­don was the ex­pe­ri­ence of more than twen­ty years in­side the beauty in­dus­try. These find­ings un­der­score some­thing we knew when started our journey: the beauty in­dus­try is full of dirty se­crets.

How We Got Here: Our Con­sid­er­a­tion Frame­work

We didn’t start with a prod­uct. We started with val­ues.

We didn’t start with a prod­uct and work back­wards to make it sus­tain­able. We started with five prin­ci­ples, and from there we have built a con­sid­er­a­tion frame­work that guides every­thing we do. These weren’t pluck­ed from a brand strategy deck. They emerged from who we are as in­di­vid­u­als, as part­ners, and as cli­mate ac­tivists.

Our frame­work cen­tres on in­gre­di­ent trans­parency, re­spon­si­ble con­sump­tion, wa­ter­less for­mu­las, just-in-time man­u­fac­tur­ing, and plas­tic-free pack­ag­ing. These pil­lars align closely with the UN’s Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goal 12: en­sur­ing re­spon­si­ble pro­duc­tion and re­duc­ing con­sump­tion. From the be­gin­ning, we knew wa­ter scarcity mat­tered. We knew petro­chem­i­cals were de­stroy­ing ecosys­tems. We knew the 120 bil­lion units of cos­met­ics pack­ag­ing gen­er­ated an­nu­al­ly was an un­ac­cept­able bur­den on the planet. We knew work­ers across sup­ply chains de­served dig­nity and fair wages.

The journey from pur­pose to prod­uct re­quired “for­get­ting every­thing we know about beauty”. With Sira’s 20 years of in­sid­er ex­pe­ri­ence at Es­tée Lauder Com­panies, LVMH, and MANA Pro­duc­ts, we had the for­mu­la­tion ex­per­tise. He even up­skilled with a course in or­ganic skin­care and hair­care to en­sure we could trace in­gre­di­en­ts to the high­est eth­i­cal stan­dards. Sev­er­al times we have had to change for­mu­las com­pletely in or­der to source ma­te­ri­als re­spon­si­bly.

We asked our­selves: if wa­ter is get­ting on your face and hair si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly in the shower, why can’t one prod­uct ad­dress both? The an­swer be­came our multi-func­tion­al bars. In­stead of telling you that you need many pro­duc­ts in your bathroom shelf, we made our for­mu­las high­ly con­cen­trated so that they cleanse, sham­poo, con­di­tion, and help with your face and body shav­ing. We made them ve­g­an, cru­elty-free, up­cy­cled from food waste and wood fenc­ing, and en­tirely free of sul­phates, parabens, and mi­croplas­tics. We chose or­ganic and Cos­mos or Eco­cert-cer­ti­fied bi­o­log­i­cal in­gre­di­en­ts. We re­jected any­thing de­rived from fos­sil fu­els.

Our 100-gram bar lasts ap­prox­i­mately 80 washes. Their longevity cre­ates a busi­ness chal­lenge for us, be­cause cus­tomers don’t re­turn as fre­quently as some busi­ness peo­ple would con­sid­er "nor­mal". Now try to ex­plain that to in­vestors and start­up ac­cel­er­a­tors! Re­gard­less, build­ing slowly and mak­ing mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ences is ex­actly what we signed up for. We man­u­fac­ture every­thing in small batches at our South Lon­don studio us­ing a Just-In-Time mod­el that elim­i­nates over­pro­duc­tion. We’re cer­ti­fied by ESG Mark, an in­de­pen­dent body ver­i­fy­ing our en­vi­ron­men­tal, so­ci­al, and gov­er­nance stan­dards. Our pack­ag­ing is FSC-cer­ti­fied pa­per from re­spon­si­ble sources, 100% com­postable, with plant-based stor­age cases and ve­g­an inks. We’re mem­bers of 1% for the Planet and part­ner with Clean­Hub for ocean-plas­tic re­trieval.

This wasn’t about gam­ing a rat­ing sys­tem. It was about build­ing a brand where every de­ci­sion—from raw ma­te­r­i­al to fin­ished prod­uct—puts peo­ple and planet be­fore profit. Good On You un­der­stood us from the very be­gin­ning, and we could­n't be more thrilled.

What Comes Next: Hold­ing the Line in Chal­leng­ing Times

Achiev­ing the num­ber one rat­ing from Good on You is in­cred­i­bly mean­ing­ful, but it’s not a fin­ish line. The real work lies ahead: main­tain­ing this stan­dard while nav­i­gat­ing an in­creas­ingly com­plex land­scape.

We’re deeply con­cerned about the push­back cli­mate ac­tion is fac­ing glob­al­ly. Re­cent mon­ths have seen what ex­perts call “green­lash” or “green back­lash”—or­ga­nized re­sis­tance to en­vi­ron­men­tal poli­cies fun­ded by fos­sil fuel in­ter­ests and am­pli­fied by po­lit­i­cal ac­tors. The Eu­ro­pean Union has di­luted var­i­ous cli­mate change poli­cies through roll­back leg­is­la­tion. In the UK, po­lit­i­cal lead­ers have pro­posed scrap­ping land­mark cli­mate leg­is­la­tion, prompt­ing se­nior fig­ures to call such moves a “cat­a­strophic mis­take” and cli­mate sci­en­tists to de­scribe them as “in­sane”. Being heard has al­ways been tough when it comes to cli­mate change. Yet, it seems in the past year we have gone back­wards rather than for­wards.

But we’re still here. And we’re not going any­where.

The wor­ld is shift­ing, and not al­ways in the right di­rec­tion. Con­sumer fa­tigue is real: 68% of UK adults find the amount of beauty pro­duc­ts avail­able over­whelming, and 56% think it’s su­per­fi­ci­al to spend too much mon­ey on them. Yet at the same time, there’s a pow­er­ful counter-move­ment emerging. The #un­der­con­sump­tion move­ment and de-in­flu­enc­ing trends are gain­ing mas­sive trac­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly among younger gen­er­a­tions. Peo­ple are re­ject­ing “haul cul­ture” and ques­tion­ing whether they truly need the latest pro­duc­ts to feel ful­filled.

This gives us hope. De­spite po­lit­i­cal back­lash and the beauty in­dus­try’s con­tin­ued focus on ex­cess, con­sumers are be­com­ing more con­scious, more crit­i­cal, and more de­mand­ing of gen­uine sus­tain­abil­ity. A re­cent survey found that 75% of re­spon­den­ts feel bet­ter about shop­ping at stores that stock en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friendly pro­duc­ts. This isn’t a pass­ing trend—it’s a fun­da­men­tal shift in val­ues.

Reach­ing the top of Good on You’s score­card isn’t a fin­ish line. For us, it’s a re­spon­si­bil­ity. Main­tain­ing this status means con­tin­uing to live our five pil­lars with un­com­pro­mis­ing in­tegrity. It means in­gre­di­ent trans­parency so com­plete that our “honest list” leaves no room for doubt about what’s in­side our pro­duc­ts. It means re­spon­si­ble con­sump­tion that em­pow­ers you to buy less so there will be more—fight­ing the beauty in­dus­try’s re­lent­less push for over­con­sump­tion with care­ful­ly thought, multi-func­tion­al pro­duc­ts.

It means re­main­ing wa­ter­less, not just be­cause con­cen­trated for­mu­las are more ef­fi­ca­cious, but be­cause nat­ur­al re­sources are fi­nite. It means just-in-time man­u­fac­tur­ing that rad­i­cal­ly re­duces our car­bon foot­print com­pared to globe-trot­ting sup­ply chains. It means stay­ing plas­tic-free and ex­pand­ing our com­mit­ment to pack­ag­ing in­no­va­tion.

We’ve never be­lieved in rush­ing. Our journey from start­ing Dis­rup­tor Lon­don back in Jan­u­ary 2021 to launch­ing pro­duc­ts took over two years of re­search and de­vel­op­ment. While oth­er brands launch new pro­duc­ts week­ly, we focus on cre­at­ing fewer pro­duc­ts that gen­uinely work hard­er. We be­lieve that this slower, more de­lib­er­ate ap­proach is ex­actly what the Good on You rat­ing recog­nises—and it’s what we’ll con­tin­ue to do.

We won’t pre­tend the land­scape ahead is sim­ple. The wor­ld is shift­ing, and we’re deeply con­cerned about the push­back cli­mate ac­tion is fac­ing. Po­lit­i­cal head­winds are strength­en­ing. Green­wash­ing per­sists as brands hide be­hind buzz­words like “clean beauty” with­out sub­stan­tive change. Con­sumer fa­tigue is real when sus­tain­abil­ity feels over­whelming rather than em­pow­er­ing.

But we’re still here, doing the work in this lit­tle corner of the wor­ld, one thought­ful­ly crafted bar at a time. This Good on You recog­ni­tion isn’t just ours. It be­longs to every single per­son who has chosen to sup­port a brand that gen­uinely pri­ori­tises peo­ple and planet over profit. It be­longs to our com­mu­nity who un­der­stands that real change doesn’t happen overnight, but through con­sis­tent, prin­ci­pled ac­tion.

Thank you for being part of this journey. We promise to keep show­ing up, keep speak­ing truth, and keep cre­at­ing pro­duc­ts that re­flect the wor­ld we want to live in, not the one that’s most prof­itable to sell into. The road ahead may be chal­leng­ing, but we’re here for the long journey.

Be­cause at Dis­rup­tor Lon­don, we’ve al­ways known that the fact we can put the power into your hands as a con­sumer—through a prod­uct you get up in the morn­ing and use, take to the shower, to the gym, or on hol­i­day, know­ing you can make a dif­fer­ence—that’s what makes us hap­py.

Let’s keep dis­rupt­ing to­geth­er.