Clean beauty is a positioning — and now a category — built on products formulated without ingredients consumers perceive as harmful (parabens, sulfates, phthalates, and a long, retailer-specific "no" list). It is not a regulated term, which makes messaging and substantiation a communications minefield: retailers like Sephora ("Clean at Sephora") and Credo set their own standards, and greenwashing claims draw scrutiny. For beauty PR, clean positioning demands rigorous, defensible language and third-party validation. Vague "clean" claims invite backlash; specific, substantiated ones build the trust that carries in both editorial coverage and AI-summarized product research.