The Best Indie Skincare Products at Sephora 2019
9 Indie Skincare Brands You Should Know — and They’re All Stocked at Sephora
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As satisfying as it is to be in on a secret skincare brand, either through a beauty-savvy friend or by spending hours combing through Instagram (we won't tell), what happens when you see something that looks amazing . . . but you're not sure exactly who's behind it all and if the products are really safe?
Independent beauty brands typically lack a huge marketing budget and rely almost entirely on word of mouth to start, and getting the word into the mouths of Sephora shoppers can be life-changing for a business. (Plus, it makes shopping so much easier, both in terms of convenience and your state of mind.)
Before you know it, the products may no longer be your little secret, but access to indie brands from Farmacy to Farsáli becomes quicker than ever, especially now that they're available with the rest of your favourites for one-stop shopping.
Whether they were inspired by someone's childhood or the products were created for a need that arose later in life, these brands started out as a dream and turned into something that's now sold globally. All nine of these beauty brands offer a little something for your skin, but several also dabble in makeup, hair products, and body care, too.
Check out the indie skincare lines that shouldn't be missed when browsing at Sephora ahead.
Herbivore
Looks can be deceiving . . . but that's not the case with Herbivore. The minimalist Instagrammable packageing is stunning, yet what's inside the bottles and jars is just as impressive.
Founded in 2011 by a husband-and-wife duo, the brand has stayed committed to its natural, nontoxic formula to this day. The couple has come a long way from their Seattle kitchen, as several products from the well-loved Herbivore line have been stocked at Sephora since 2015.
There's the bestselling Blue Tansy Fruit Enzyme Resurfacing Clarity Mask ($48) that features a powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant coming from a North African flower and even the Bakuchiol Retinol Alternative Smoothing Serum ($54), with extract from the seeds and leaves of the babchi tree.
All of the products are 100 percent vegan, from the soaps and face oils to a Self Love Body Ritual Kit ($48), which sounds like a perfect way to decompress before the holidays, or any time of year.
Biossance
The first thing you need to know about the skincare brand Biossance is its key ingredient: squalane. It's a highly effective moisturiser that comes from sugar cane, and mimics the squalene (with an "e") our bodies produce.
Squalane (with an "a") is entirely plant-based and renewable, and the company produces a version as effective as the one the body produces using the innovative biotechnology that led to its start (when its scientists low-key developed a plant-based cure for malaria back in 2003).
Remaining committed to high standards for clean beauty with a touch of science, Biossance has been sold at Sephora since 2017. The indie brand also combines squalane with other natural ingredients like Marine Algae Eye Cream ($54), Tea Tree Cleansing Gel ($29), and Vitamin C Rose Oil ($72).
Saint Jane
There are CBD products that look like their bottles' labels were possibly printed in someone's basement and packed into whatever box was lying around . . . and then there's Saint Jane.
This indie CBD line was created in 2018 by (no surprise) someone who actually had years of experience in branding. So, if bliss should come before beauty and true radiance from within, then these super-luxe and super-effective products are a testament to that.
With a potent botanical blend added to full-spectrum CBD, Saint Jane's serums have been stocked by Sephora since 2019. There's a Luxury CBD Beauty Serum ($125) for a smoother, softer, and more radiant complexion, and a Luxury CBD Body Serum ($58) that helps brighten and hydrate the skin all over.
In fact, the "Tom Ford of CBD products" even took home a top spot in POPSUGAR's 2019 Power Your Pretty Awards for best new beauty brand this year, too.
Farmacy
Farmacy gets its name from its mission of farm-to-face skin care that's clean and powerful.
You see, the founder first learned about a bright-green echinacea that happened to be 300 percent stronger than the regular kind when he was growing up on a Christmas tree farm in upstate New York. This led to the brand's proprietary patented ingredient "Echinacea GreenEnvy," which can be found in several products like the Dew It All Total Eye Cream ($38) and Sleep Tight Firming Night Balm ($48).
Launched at Sephora in 2015, Farmacy partners with organic farms, so it knows exactly where ingredients come from, like the acerola cherries in the Very Cherry Bright 15 Percent Clean Vitamin C Serum ($62) from Northeast Brazil. Not only are the brand's products popular, they're also produced sustainably. So fresh and so clean (green beauty).
The Inkey List
There are so many often-confusing ingredients in most products, so it makes sense that some brands want to strip their products down to just the main ingredient that actually gets the job done. It's also important to have clear explanations of what the product is, who it works for, and how to use it.
And there you have the reason for The Inkey List. Founded by a former Boots' beauty buyer and product developer, this affordable skincare line is doing away with cute-yet-mysterious product names and relying on a star ingredient and purpose like Polyglutamic Acid Hydrating Serum ($15), Alpha Arbutin Brightening Serum ($12), Polyhydroxy Acid (PHA) Gentle Exfoliating Toner ($11), and Retinol Anti-Ageing Serum ($10).
The Inkey List has been stocked at Sephora since 2019, and each of its products feature one main ingredient to address skin concerns from dryness and dullness to oil control and breakouts. The brand's slogan is "your beauty translators," and even the pronunciation of the main ingredient is right on the front of the tube or bottle.
Oh, and they're all also under $15.
Farsáli
Not everyone can have a husband that turns her love for makeup into a beauty brand, but that's just what happened with Farsáli. The first product — a rose gold beauty oil infused with brightening rosehip seed oil and actual 24-karat gold flakes — launched in 2015, and gave the world its desired glow.
Now offering makeup and skincare products, Farsáli has been stocked at Sephora since 2017, including that Rose Gold Elixir ($22-$54) and the popular Unicorn Essence Antioxidant Primer Serum ($22-$54), too.
Since then, the brand continues to come out with buzzy, much-loved products like Volcanic Elixir Polynesian Beauty Oil ($39) featuring the nut kernels of tamanu fruit and the aptly named Skintune Blur Perfecting Primer Serum ($22-$54). And, hey, if you can't pick just one, there's a set with sample sizes of all four.
Briogeo
Briogeo's founder grew up making her grandmother's haircare products in West Virginia from the age of 5 — and it led her to start her own clean beauty line as an adult, once she realised how well the family's recipes actually worked. Years later, she took her grandmother's recipes to a natural chemist team — and the brand was born in her NYC apartment in 2013.
This clean beauty line has come a long way since then but still sticks to its indie roots — and, luckily, that means Sephora shoppers have been treated to Briogeo's natural haircare and skincare products since 2017.
Think superfoods . . . for your hair. There's the Banana + Coconut Nourishing Superfood Shampoo ($28) and a Kale + Apple Replenishing Superfood Conditioner ($28), just to name a couple.
The products are also popular with POPSUGAR editors, especially this cooling jelly conditioner for extra hydration and a charcoal shampoo to offer sweet relief for itchy scalps. Ahh.
Peace Out
If you're ready to say peace out to pimples and other skin situations, meet indie brand Peace Out. When its founder discovered hydrocolloid dressings — a type of adhesive bandage that offers a moist, insulated, and protective environment to treat wounds while allowing the body's own enzymes in to help heal them — in the drugstore, he was inspired to find a lab to infuse these dressings with blemish-shrinking ingredients.
Peace Out hit Sephora in January 2017 — with these innovative stickers infused with vitamin A, salicylic acid, and aloe vera.
Now, in addition to those Acne Healing Dots ($19-$32), there are Puffy Under-Eye Patches ($25) with de-puffing passionfruit extract, and Pore Treatment Strips ($19) to lift away dirt, excess sebum, and dead skin.
Perhaps most unique thus far are the Microneedling Dark Spot Brightening Dots ($28) with little spikes to allow powerful ingredients like niacinamide, licorice extract, and tranexamic acid to help even out the skin tone, no extra tool required. Oh, and no needles either.
Glow Recipe
If you like face masks, there's a good chance you've heard of Glow Recipe. The brand's watermelon one flew off the (virtual) shelves when it was announced, and that same Watermelon + AHA Glow Sleeping Mask ($22-$45) is still offered today.
Its founders actually began as colleagues at L'Oréal before they decided to start their own company in 2014 — and Glow Recipe has been stocked at Sephora since 2017. You may remember them from Shark Tank, too, where they won a $425,000 investment offer from Robert Herjavec in 2015 . . . before ultimately turning it down to continue to self-fund their business.
The popular K-beauty brand remains committed to natural ingredients like pineapple, blueberry, and avocado. If you're getting hungry (for good skin care), definitely check out the bestselling Avocado Melt Retinol Eye Sleeping Mask ($42) and this Glow Baby Glow set ($29), which has the all-over version of that avocado one and a smaller size of the wildly popular watermelon one, too.
