A Prime Product from BYBI


There are a lot of cosmetics-making folks out there and it's always a pleasure to meet colleagues who are truly passionate about what they do.

Dominika and Elsie – the ladies behind Clean Beauty Company – are 2 such passionate souls. When they offered to send me a jar of their Prime Time cleanser to try, I couldn't think of a single reason to say no.

So I didn't.

After washing my face twice (because I loved everything about the product), I had to ask them to share a bit more.


Everyone seems to be going green with their beauty products these days, but there are so many definitions of what’s green. How does Clean Beauty Co stand on what’s clean and green? 

The catalyst for our journey into clean beauty was really a dissatisfaction with what was currently on offer from the mainstream beauty industry: blanket formulations across many brands, lots of water and synthetic fillers padding out our products, very little of the good stuff and a whole lot of marketing fluff.

The reason why we advocate natural is really to create products filled to brim of ingredients that have functional but also holistic benefits for the skin; every ingredient has a purpose and isn't just there to fill space.

For that reason, our definition of a clean formulation is no synthetic ingredients, 100% natural, vegan and obviously not tested on animals. We extend that philosophy to our packaging which is always biodegradable and 100% recyclable.

Good for us and good for the environment!

Unlike other natural brands though, we don't demonise any synthetic ingredients or use 'free from' labelling because it creates a lot of fear and negativity, and we're all about promoting the positives of going natural.



You have Clean Beauty Co as well as BYBI - can you explain briefly how the one company ‘gave birth’ to the other? Or did they both come into existence simultaneously? 


Clean Beauty Co is our content platform: we started as basic DIY experimenters (I wouldn't even call us formulators at that point!) and we decide to share our journey across our blog and social media.

As we were learning, our audience learnt with us and that has spurred on many interesting opportunities for us including a book published by Penguin, workshops and a natural beauty festival called Clean Cult.

When we decided to launch a range of skincare products, we wanted to build a strong identity and voice around them that was separate to the content we were already sharing. We also found that amongst mainstream beauty buyers, there's misconceptions around the performance and efficacy of natural products and we wanted to dispel those - but by labelling ourselves Clean Beauty Co, it would have made this a lot harder as we would have always been pigeonholed in the natural category.

We're building a mainstream beauty brand that produces high performance skincare... that's also 100% natural!

I understand you both studied cosmetic formulation at Formula Botanica. Do you mind sharing a bit about your experiences there? 

We decided to start with Formula Botanica to transition out of being DIY recipe makers to trained skincare formulators. We were enjoying formulating so much and felt we had a real skill when it came to NPD, and we didn't want to outsource this when it came time to scale.

While we already had a basic understanding of how to formulate, Formula Botanica refined these skills, and made sure we formulated products that were stable and safe. It's a great diploma and creative community and one we're very fortunate to be a part of!


Prime Time is a beautifully formulated product. The transition of balm to milk and the addition of a touch of exfoliation is clever. I washed my face twice when I tried it because it was such a pleasurable experience. Did you set out to do an all-in-one cleanser when you started formulating?

It smells so delicious doesn't it! I have to stop myself from eating it sometimes. We like to shake things up when it comes to products and the thought behind Prime Time was really a nod to the traditional makeup primer.

If you prime your skin to be in the best shape to apply your makeup, why wouldn't you do the same for your skincare?

Fresh, exfoliated skin will more readily absorb the nutrients of your serums and creams and ultimately make them work harder for you.

There's something so luxurious about the emulsification milk effect and we love add little surprises for people as they use our products. The added bonus is really that it's a great cleanser too!



What can we expect next from you ladies in the way of products or projects?  

We've just launched three products in three weeks which were formulated as a way to combat stressed, tired skin from big city grime.

Then we have Babe Balm and Prime Time coming out in travel friendly plastic tube versions - and the tubes are made of biodegradable sugar cane.

We're really conscious of the huge amount of plastic waste generated by the beauty industry so always will find alternatives there.

After that, we have a few products in the pipeline mainly driven from ideas from our community.

We're all about multi-functional, multi-use products that you can customise at home as well, so that gives a bit of a clue!


Find more from BYBI at Clean Beauty Company.

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