Tower 28 Beauty Brand Review: Are They Clean & Conscious?

Tower 28 is a newer beauty brand launched in 2018 by Amy Liu, who is also the brand’s CEO. Offering beauty and skincare, their tagline is “Clean Makeup For Sensitive Skin”, so it’s important for us to dig into the brand and make sure that their claims are true.

Tower 28 is a rapidly growing brand, currently available at Sephora and enjoying success on social media. It’s clear they have a talented marketing team behind them.

Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of Tower 28. Are they truly as clean, eco-conscious and safe as they claim to be?

Let’s find out.

Our Methodology

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

Ingredients (Rating: Best)

Tower 28’s marketing is heavily focused on the clean beauty angle. Let’s take a look at what they have to say about their product ingredients:

…our products are made with non-toxic, non-irritating, good-for-you ingredients that you can pronounce. No Fillers. No fragrances. No animal by-products.

Tower 28 is offering up some strong claims here. We took a close look at the ingredients in 15 Tower 28 products, and the results were surprisingly good.

The only ingredients of concern we found are synthetic dyes, which are sometimes seen as controversial because they are derived from coal tar.

This is essentially impossible to avoid for beauty products. There are very few alternatives for pigments—some exist, like carmine (also known as Crimson Lake, E120 or C.I. 75470) which is made from the female cochineal insect (Dactylopius coccus) and gives shades of red.

We cannot fault Tower 24 for their use of dyes, because there are simply no makeup brands available that don’t use pigments of some sort.

Looking at the brand’s ingredient blacklist, they maintain a strict standard on what they do and don’t allow in their formulations.

For these reasons, we give Tower 28 a rating of Best for their ingredients.

Sustainability (Rating: Good)

Tower 28 aims to avoid excess packaging, so you’ll find no mirrors, false bottoms, pans, or paper inserts in their products. All paper packaging used is FSC-certified paper from sustainably-managed forests.

In 2021, the brand transitioned to using 50%+ recycled plastic for their packaging. While we believe that no plastic is acceptable, it’s still better than nothing to use 50% recycled plastic. Hopefully the world finds a solution to disposable plastic in the near future. Tower 28’s shipping boxes are made from 98% recycled paper as well.

The brand has the goal of reaching 100% carbon neutrality by purchasing carbon offsets. They also partner with a third-party service called Clovely.

For these reasons, we give Tower 28 a rating of Good for their sustainability practices.

Animal Welfare (Rating: Best)

Cruelty-Free

Tower 28 is a fully cruelty-free brand, meaning neither their products or ingredients are tested on animals during any stage of the production process. They’re also not available for sale in areas where animal testing is required by law.

For this reason, we give them a rating of Best for their cruelty-free status.

Vegan

Tower 28 is also a fully vegan brand, meaning they use zero animal-derived ingredients in any of their formulas.

For this reason, we give them a rating of Best for their vegan status.

Brand Ratings

Our rating scale ranges from “Best” (for having the best practices) to “Bad” (for having unacceptable practices). We rated Tower 28 as follows.

INGREDIENTS	Best – Tower 28’s ingredients are as clean as you can expect them to be for a beauty brand.
SUSTAINABILITY	Good – Incorporating 50% recycled plastic into their packaging and using sustainably-sourced paper is a good start.
ANIMAL WELFARE	Best – Tower 28 is a fully cruelty-free and vegan brand.

Overall Rating: Best

The Tower 28 brand is a great choice for those who want to avoid animal-derived ingredients and cruel testing practices. Their products are as clean as you can expect them to be, with the exception of synthetic dyes that come from petroleum or coal tar.

Their sustainability practices could be improved a bit by eliminating plastic from their packaging altogether.

All things considered, when compared to other brands we’ve reviewed, Tower 28 stands out and we give them a rating of Best.