Toronto-based skincare brand Three Ships has launched a city-wide OOH (out-of-home) campaign that challenges one of beauty’s most widely used — and least regulated — claims: “natural” and “clean.”
Despite driving billions in sales, these terms have no legally binding definition in cosmetics in the U.S. or Canada, meaning brands are free to interpret them individually. The campaign brings this tension to life through bold posters across Toronto with lines like “Natural. According to who?” and “Clean. Based on what?”
Each poster directs to a landing page where consumers can learn more and add their name to support clearer standards — helping quantify demand for future regulatory change, say Laura Thompson and Connie Lo, Co-Founders of the company.
“Transparency has always been core to who we are as a brand, and honestly this has been a dream of ours since the very beginning. When Connie and I were first building Three Ships, we were shocked to find out there was no legal definition of “natural” or “clean” anywhere. It felt impossible. These are words that carry so much weight for consumers, yet the only regulation that exists around how brands use them comes down to basic false advertising rules. We knew we wanted to help change that someday. This campaign is our first step toward doing that publicly, and it definitely won’t be our last,” said Thompson.
“We’re really excited about this moment because it feels like the right time to bring others into the conversation. One of the things we’re hoping this campaign does is help us find like-minded brands who share this frustration and want to see the same change. We don’t want to do this alone, and we’re hoping this is the start of building a real coalition around it,” added Lo.
Defining “natural” and “clean”
For Three Ships, explained Thompson, natural means ingredients that are entirely plant or mineral-derived, not petrochemical in origin, processed using defined and allowed methods, and sourced with full transparency.
“Clean means formulated responsibly, with safety backed by clear and substantiated evidence, full ingredient transparency, and no misleading claims. These are the standards we hold ourselves to and we’ve been very intentional about defining them clearly,” she said.
Lo said the biggest issue is that there is no standardized definition across the industry at all.
“Every brand has their own interpretation. Every retailer has their own standards. So a product that one brand calls natural might not meet another brand’s definition, and the consumer has no way of knowing that. That’s exactly why this cause matters so much to us. These words carry real weight for shoppers and right now they have no consistent meaning, which makes the whole category confusing to navigate,” she said.
The heart of the campaign
At its heart this campaign is about consumer education, said Thompson.
“Through our own consumer research and just by listening to natural skincare shoppers over the years, we kept hearing the same thing: natural and clean beauty is so confusing, what do these terms actually mean, are they the same thing? We wanted to give people a name for that frustration and help them understand what’s actually driving it.
Lo said their bigger dream and end goal is to help push for real regulatory change.
“But we see consumer education as the essential first step. You can’t build momentum for policy change without first helping people understand the problem. So this campaign is about raising awareness and showing that there is genuine consumer demand for clarity,” she said.
Outcomes hoping to achieve
Thompson said they want consumers to feel seen.
“So much of what we heard in our research was this real frustration that natural and clean beauty is just hard to shop with confidence. We hope the landing page gives people a place to have this frustration acknowledged, and to help them understand why it exists. Beyond that, we want to show regulators and the broader industry that there is real consumer appetite for this kind of clarity and transparency,” she noted.
Lo said partnership is one of their core brand values, so they’re also hoping this becomes a rallying point for other brands who care about the same thing.
“We genuinely want to find partners across the industry who are passionate about pushing for a shared definition and working toward change together. The petition is one signal of consumer demand, but building a coalition of brands who are aligned on this is just as important to us,” she said.
When asked how do they address the risk of confusing or alienating consumers by questioning familiar marketing language, Thompson said: “We actually rooted this whole campaign in consumer insight for that exact reason. The frustration we kept hearing was that natural and clean beauty is already confusing to shop. Consumers told us that, so what we’re doing is acknowledging something that people are already feeling and giving it context. These words mean a lot to how people want to live their lives and take care of themselves, and we took that seriously when developing the campaign.”
Lo said they were really deliberate about the tone here.
“We are not trying to fearmonger or demonize any ingredients or brands. We’re simply saying that we want there to be a shared definition of natural and clean so that consumers always know what they’re getting when they shop the category. And that’s our end goal really, being able to help everyone navigate natural and clean beauty with confidence,” she said.
More from Retail Insider:
