As the beauty industry evolves into more progressive and cleaner products, beauty entrepreneurs started to rewrite the future of the beauty world by creating sustainable and innovative brands. 

Indie beauty brands come in a variety of forms: skincare, makeup, hair, and body care. With everything from skincare regimes to bath products, this article focuses on the best indie beauty brands to pamper yourself with.

What is ‘Indie’ Beauty?

‘Indie’ comes from the word “independent”. The most basic definition of indie beauty is simply small businesses that are independently owned and haven’t received any corporate-backed funding, unlike large corporations.

How Does Indie Beauty Shape the Beauty Industry?

At its core, indie beauty retells a more transparent, credible, and unique brand that allows beauty lovers to experience quality products while carrying the passion and personality of the brand. 

Indie beauty brands develop products with extensive time and resources. They create products founded upon the idea of fulfilling the needs of their consumers.

Makeup is an opportunity for people to unleash their creativity and self-expression. Whether you are looking for a hair product, cream blush, eyebrow pencils, or a skincare regime, indie beauty brands can be your best friend. 

Not sure where to begin? Here are some of the best indie beauty brands to look out for.

Best Indie Makeup Brands to Try

Yes, drugstore brands are good and readily available in the market, but sometimes it takes local indie beauty brands to cater to our beauty needs. Here are some of the indie makeup brands we can’t stop talking about:

Issy & Co. Cosmetics

Since minimalism is one of the trends in the Filipino beauty industry nowadays, Issy & Co. Cosmetics is one of the best indie makeup brands up for grabs. This beauty brand has developed products to help Filipinos achieve skin-like makeup with skin-loving ingredients. Coming in a variety of shades and colors, their product caters to Filipino with different skin types.

All beauty products of Issy & Co. are created to be paraben-free, vegan, cruelty-free, and gluten-free.

Try this: Issy & Co.’s Active Skin Tint is one of their best-selling products you should check out. Made with active ingredients like niacinamide, squalene, and glycerin, this oil-free tinted moisturizer features a lightweight formula that’s perfect even for people with sensitive skin.

This product also contains broad spectrum protection to shield skin against UV rays. Their skin tints are perfect for everyday wear as it also serves as everyday skincare, making the tint feels like your own skin.

Squad Cosmetics

Are you looking for affordable products in the market? This beauty brand is best for beauty junkies on a tight budget. You would not believe that you can get quality beauty products for as low as 75 pesos!

As one of the color cosmetics brands in the market, Squad offers a pretty impressive range since they have almost everything. You can scroll through their online store and check out the makeup must-haves to complete your makeup kit.

Influencer and Makeup Artist-Created Beauty Brands

Makeup brands are usually tested by beauty influencers and makeup professionals. Since they focus on beauty alone, they spent their time curating the best makeup brands for consumers.

Here are some of the top-of-the-range products created by local beauty influencers and makeup professionals:

GRWM Cosmetics

GRWM Cosmetics, read as “Get Ready with Me Cosmetics”, is an indie makeup brand founded by Content Creator and Influencer Mae Layug. Varying from makeup bases to lip tints, Mae personally conceptualizes the brand including its chic packaging, wide shade range, and high-performing products. Made with hyaluronic acid, ceramides, and vitamin e, this makeup brand is perfect for any skin type.

Once you’ve tried this product, it will never go out of your personal favorites. No wonder it’s one of the best indie makeup brands in the market.

GRWM Cosmetics is a proud PETA-certified cruelty-free, vegan, and non-toxic brand.

Try this: GRWM Cosmetics Radiance Tint is a creamy and long-wearing brightening concealer to highlight your face, cover dark spots, and even out skin tones. You can choose a variety of shades to be used as your spot corrector, concealer, or cream contour, depending on your skin tone.

Despite being new to the market, GRWM Cosmetics is one of the go-to brands for makeup bases. This indie brand is shade inclusive as it also caters to Filipinos with dark, brown, yellow, and light skin. If you still don’t know the shade that matches your skin, you may want to check on this guide to find your skin tone.

TEVIANT Beauty

Formulated in Italy, TEVIANT Beauty is an indie makeup brand by celebrity makeup artist Albert Kurniawan. With more than ten years of experience in the makeup industry, Albert made his brand using the finest cosmetic ingredients and best formulations.  

TEVIANT Beauty has quickly become a personal favorite indie makeup brand among beauty editors, industry insiders, and fellow makeup artists.

Hypergleam

The first product of Hypergleam was an experiment by celebrity makeup artist Miki Liuson. With the idea of selling extra tubes of lip gloss using her own formulation, Miki hopes to produce an affordable yet high-quality brand for Filipinos. Her experiment gave birth to the first-ever brand to have multichrome pigments in the Philippines.

Try this: Home to the viral lip gloss, Hypergleam’s Hydrating Lip Gloss is an affordable and nourishing product to try. With six shades available in the market, this lip gloss is loved by the beauty community as it gives fresh and moist lips.

Best Indie Wellness Brands to Shop

Other than indie makeup brands, entrepreneurs are venturing into other forms of beauty and wellness since indie beauty also comes with skin care, hair care, and body care. In fact, it’s not just the big guns making noise in the beauty world nowadays.

There are countless small and independent new brands shaking things up. Here are some of the best you need to know about and their hero products worth snapping up:

YVI Skin Care Products 

YVI Skin Care Products is a small brand that produces high-quality products using high-quality ingredients. Produced to make skincare routine simple and straightforward, YVI Skin Care is devoted to making skin healthier.

This brand is proven cruelty-free, paraben-free, pregnancy-safe, and sulfate-free.

Try this: Achieve a clean beauty with their Vitamin C+ Collagen Face Serum. Powered by 5% Vitamin C and 1% Collagen, this serum works to make your skin glow and eradicate the appearance of skin imperfection. Apart from the active ingredients, this brand also contains aloe vera extract. 

Ellana Cosmetics

Infused with natural ingredients, Ellana Cosmetics is one of the pioneers of indie beauty in the Philippines. They are known for their sustainable mission and nourishing blend products that improve the overall look of the skin, from makeup to skincare.

Try this: Powered by essential oils, one of the best products of Ellana Cosmetics is their Clear Skin Clarifying Lightweight Face Oil. This serum fights acne and redness thanks to Boswellia serrata extracts that soothe the skin and grape seed antioxidants that work to control acne and fight free radicals.

Mink

Skincare for your intimate area? Mink has got you covered! 

Mink is an intimate skincare ally that has several products formulated especially for boobs, butt, and bikini lines. All for women empowerment, Mink is created by an all-girl team with a passion for helping fellow Filipinas. 

Try this: Mink’s I am Booty-ful is a butt scrub that smells like cotton candy. The scrub helps remove dead skin cells around the inner thigh and butt cheeks caused by too much friction. For less than Php 350, you can get a flawless butt.

Babe Formula

Our crown shouldn’t be left unattended. Before you start feeling hopeless about your damaged hair, consider trying hair care products from Babe Formula.

From shampoos to hair sprays, Babe Formula prioritizes hair care to inspire Filipinos to flaunt their healthy and shiny hair. Infused with argan oil and hydrolyzed keratin, their products are crafted to suit all hair types. You can also learn and try out several hair care practices to achieve smooth and radiant hair.

Final Note

Indie beauty brands offer a wide selection of innovative and sustainable products. One thing to note is that most indie brands are cruelty-free, clinically tested, and fragrance-free products using organic ingredients.

Indie beauty brands prove that you don’t have to look far to get quality brands. Maybe it’s time for us to shift our attention to these high-performance products, and we’ll see several noteworthy brands that deserve the hype.