Is Gwen Stefani’s GXVE Beauty Clean and Sustainable?

gxve
4 min reading time

It seems like every day there’s a new celebrity beauty brand making its debut. No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani is the latest celeb to enter the beauty market with GXVE, her line of affordable beauty available solely at Sephora.

The singer is known for her signature red lipstick, and it’s no surprise that the brand launched with a line of lipsticks.

GXVE doesn’t make many claims about its ethical standards other than being vegan and cruelty-free and doesn’t claim to be a clean brand.

At first glance, GXVE doesn’t seem promising, but let’s take a closer look at their practices and see how they rate.

Our Methodology

At Better Goods, we rank brands on our three pillars: ingredients, sustainability, and animal welfare.

Brands are rated on the three pillars as follows.

Best  – This ranking is for the best of the best. Only exemplary brands will receive a ranking of best for any category.

Good – This ranking is for brands that are typically quite good, but don’t go above and beyond like our best choices.

Iffy – This ranking is for when we find something we find iffy. Not a good sign.

Bad – This ranking is reserved for the worst of the worst.

Ingredients (Rating: Bad)

At the time of launch, GXVE has a total of eight products. We took a deep look at the ingredients in each of them, and here are our results.

Rating: Avoid

GXVE

Original Me Matte Lipstick
Original Me Matte Lipstick
Rating:Avoid
Price: $26 ($260 per oz)

Fragrance and questionable synthetic dyes are used in the formulation of these lipsticks. For this reason, we can’t recommend them.

Ingredients

Rating: Iffy

GXVE

Line It Up Waterproof Gel Liner
Line It Up Waterproof Gel Liner
Rating: Iffy
Price: $21 ($525 per oz)

Ferric ferrocyanide is a coloring agent suspected to be an environmental toxin. Other than that, none of the other ingredients in this gel liner are of concern.

Ingredients

Rating: Avoid

GXVE

Eye See In Color - Rich Girl
Eye See In Color - Rich Girl
Rating:Avoid
Price: $28 ($233.33 per oz)

Laureth-4 is an ethoxylated ingredient which can be contaminated with ethylene oxide and 1,4-dioxane, both of which are known carcinogens. Since there’s no way of knowing if it’s contaminated or not, we never recommend products where there is this risk.

Ingredients

Rating: Good

GXVE

Most Def Eyebrow Pencil - Neutral Blonde
Most Def Eyebrow Pencil - Neutral Blonde
Rating: Good
Price: $24 ($24 per oz)

GXVE’s eyebrow pencils have no ingredients that cause us any concern. The ingredient “ultramarines” is listed by the FDA as banned in lip products, but does not appear to have any safety issues.

Ingredients

Rating: Avoid

GXVE

I'm Still Here Matte Liquid Lipstick
I'm Still Here Matte Liquid Lipstick
Rating:Avoid
Price: $24 ($141.18 per oz)

Fragrance and some artificial colorings on our list of “bad” ingredients make unable to recommend these liquid lipsticks.

Ingredients

Rating: Avoid

GXVE

Anaheim Shine Satin Lipstick
Anaheim Shine Satin Lipstick
Rating:Avoid
Price: $26 ($260 per oz)

GXVE’s lipsticks are far from a product we would recommend. They contain several ingredients on our list of ingredients to avoid, including BHT and artificial fragrance, along with potentially harmful synthetic coloring agents.

Ingredients

Rating: Good

GXVE

Hella On Point Eyebrow Pencil - Cool Black
Hella On Point Eyebrow Pencil - Cool Black
Rating: Good
Price: $24 ($8000 per oz)

In terms of ingredients, none of them stand out in a negative way. While it’s not a clean beauty product, there’s no reason to avoid it.

Ingredients

Rating: Iffy

GXVE

All Time Prime
All Time Prime
Rating: Iffy
Price: $48 ($50.53 per oz)

The main offender in this face oil is the inclusion of fragrance. There’s no indication that the fragrance is made from natural ingredients, so it’s most likely using a combination of mystery chemicals. For this reason, we can’t recommend it.

Ingredients

As you can see above, GXVE is far from a clean beauty brand, but they’re also not claiming to be one.

The main offending ingredients are:

Fragrance – When “fragrance” or “parfum” is included on a label, it’s used as a blanket term to hide any number of potentially harmful chemical ingredients. At Better Goods, we never recommend products that include “fragrance” in their ingredient lists.

Coal-Tar Dyes – Some of the synthetic dyes used in GXVE’s formulations are linked to negative health impacts.

BHT – BHT is a synthetic antioxidant that’s used as a preservative in many beauty products. It’s been linked to endocrine disruption and developmental toxicity.

It’s disappointing that Gwen Stefani would put out a brand that doesn’t care about the ingredients used in the formulations. Because they include ingredients we recommend avoiding, we give GXVE a rating of bad in terms of ingredients.

Sustainability (Rating: Iffy)

GXVE claims that some of its products are made to be refillable, but at the time of this review, refills are not available for purchase. GXVE also says that their containers are made from glass or +30% PCR plastic, which is a start, but nothing commendable.

There’s not a lot to be said for GXVE’s sustainability practices. They also don’t support any sustainability initiatives or programs.

For this reason, we give GXVE a rating of iffy for their sustainability practices.

Animal Welfare

Grey-Area Cruelty-Free

GXVE claims to be cruelty-free, but the statement made on their website is not sufficient to completely verify that they’re a cruelty-free brand.

On the website, the brand claims that they never test on animals, but there’s no indication of whether their products are sold in jurisdictions where animal testing is required by law.

Until we can verify that this isn’t the case, we cannot assume that the brand is cruelty-free.

Vegan

All GXVE Beauty products are 100% vegan.

Although GXVE is vegan, we cannot verify that it’s truly cruelty-free, so we give them a rating of Iffy.

Brand Ratings

Our rating scale ranges from “Best” (for having the best practices) to “Bad” (for having unacceptable practices). We rated GXVE as follows.

INGREDIENTSBad – GXVE doesn’t claim to be clean beauty and the results show. In the small lineup of products we found several ingredients we recommend avoiding.
SUSTAINABILITYIffy – There’s nothing particularly sustainable about GXVE. The brand claims that refills are coming, at which point we may revise this rating.
ANIMAL WELFAREIffy – The brand is vegan, but it’s unclear if the brand is truly cruelty-free.

Overall Rating: Iffy

Overall, GXVE is a not a particularly sustainable or clean beauty brand, but they’re also not making any big claims about their ethics. If you’re looking for an affordable vegan and cruelty-free option, they might be worth checking out.

Gwen Stefani’s new beauty brand, GXVE, is far from a clean beauty brand. However, they’re also not claiming to be one, which is disappointing. The main offending ingredients are fragrance, coal-tar dyes, and BHT. Sustainability practices are lackluster at best, and in terms of animal welfare,

For these reasons, GXVE only receives a rating of Iffy.

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