The Politics of Clean

For years, “clean” felt progressive.
It meant compost bins and community gardens. It meant anti-capitalist co-ops, queer herbalists, and activists who understood that environmental justice and human justice were inseparable.

Now, clean feels different.

Somewhere between raw milk TikTok, tradwife cosplay, and $70 “non-toxic” serums, the language of sustainability has been rerouted. What once functioned as critique now reinforces the very systems it set out to resist. The aesthetic of purity - linen dresses, bare faces, heirloom sourdough - has become a Trojan horse.

Beneath “low-tox living” sits something far less benign: a nostalgia for hierarchy, a fixation on biological essentialism, a pursuit of perfection calibrated to whiteness.

The pipeline isn’t loud anymore.
It’s filtered. Aspirational. Algorithmically beautiful.

And that’s exactly how it spreads.

ARTWORK JESPER GUDBERGSEN @yessirjesper
TEXT HADLEIGH SWARTS @nothadleigh

I keep rewinding the tape, trying to locate the moment everything tilted. Putting the cultural shift we’re experiencing into words often leaves me empty-handed. It’s a feeling that causes a pause, making me wonder if I woke up in an alternate reality. The reality is that the bleed of conservatism into everything from media, fashion, beauty, and wellness has been creeping in for years, passing largely unnoticed. 

I wonder how I can adequately articulate the way the puritanical ideals are deeply intertwined in every pivot we’re seeing across the cultural landscape. When I think about writing solely about beauty's current role in the revival of conservatism, I cannot untangle it from a broader web of all that has occurred to get us to a moment in time that is clean living and traditional values obsessed. Beauty isn’t an isolated case study. It’s a symptom.

Beauty isn’t an isolated case study. It’s a symptom.

Pipelines to the alt-right that were once overt and clear directives are now taking shape in the form of clean beauty, tradewife content - even looksmaxxing all of which have the same singular through-thread – perfectionism in the eyes of white supremacy. As clean beauty, sustainable fashion, and green living become co-opted by ultra conservative messaging, I wonder what is left for people who have fostered these once off-shoot liberal movements from the beginning. 

If you’re anything like myself you associate the ‘green’ and ‘eco-friendly’ era coming from 1970s inspiration rooted in activism, social justice, and cross-cultural inspiration. Of course, this time was not without its own problems but, now it feels worlds apart from the current iteration. The sustainable and clean trends we are seeing today exist on a spectrum from intersectional to overtly factional, with messaging between the two that gets muddied and convoluted by greenwashing, misinformation and ambiguity.

Clean beauty and sustainable fashion were once a niche subculture with a loyal community motivated by the climate crisis. For decades, the eco-friendly and other adjacent movements have been intertwined with liberal activism but have recently been co-opted by conservatism as it attempts to cast a wider net of followers, especially young people. As the back-to-land and homesteading trends grip conservative circles, this took over the language of environmentally conscious living that would’ve seemed unlikely two decades ago. If we think back to a few years ago, you may have first witnessed this shift with people in eco-friendly adjacent circles leaning into anti-vaccine rhetoric. As this has ballooned over the past ten years, the clean 2.0 trend we see today looks very different from the earlier activism that shaped this original subculture. 

A defining distinction that I perceive between the two ideological poles lies in orientation: one is holistic and intersection, the other is driven by aesthetics and hyper-individualism. One asked how we survive together - the other asks how I perfect myself.
Earlier sustainability action encompassed both human and environmental impact. This form of activism was advocating for our impact on the planet but on the human experience. In contrast, the conservative iteration of this is highly individualized and centered on demographic experience– white, affluent and insulated. Ultimately, losing the original messaging of ‘green’, ‘clean’ or ‘eco-friendly’. What remains is a blurred landscape of two ideologically opposing groups using the same vocabulary to describe different goals. 

So, how do we draw the line from clean beauty and sustainable fashion to tradwifery and eventually looksmaxxing or ‘Mar-a-Lago’ face? 

One asked how we survive together - the other asks how I perfect myself.

Right-leaning influencers and cultural figureheads promote ‘clean’ lifestyles steeped with puritanical rhetoric under the guise of femininity, purity, and tradition – creating an entanglement white supremacy. These traditionalist aesthetics are filtered through wellness and lifestyle trends, whether via from beauty brands, fashion designers, or influencers. Natural fibers from sustainable clothing companies, and clean beauty are not only visual signifiers for the image of purity but also for ditching impurities such as microplastics, PFA’s and plastics in the literal sense. 

Publications including Evie Magazine, a self-proclaimed ‘conservative Cosmo’ champion clean beauty products, swapping seed oils for raw milk and living a low-tox lifestyle that extends to vaccines skepticism, all framed as pathways to one's purity and femininity. Much of the sustainable, clean, and non-toxic content circulating within conservative spaces are so heavily aestheticized, that it becomes difficult to discern where ideology ends and spectacle begins.

These platforms occupy a post-woke space in which provocation carries equal, if not greater weight than ideology. The outlet regularly platforms right-wing influencers and commentators that are on the outskirts of mainstream media. Along these are once sustainable fashion advocate Elena Velez. Just one year after launching her eponymous label, she won Vogue Fashion Fund’s Sustainability Award and later became a semi-finalist for the LVMH Prize. Her work created intrigue and excitement in the sustainability community for her use of upcycled and reworked materials. Now, just a few years after her launch, she has distanced herself from sustainability work and is pushing forth white supremacy and fascist narratives despite claiming her work isn’t political. Her designs are worn regularly by climate change denier Natasha Nekrasova, marking a stark shift from Velez’s original appeal by the sustainability crowd. Evie Magazine had a seat at her NYFW show in February to cover conservative commentator Brett Cooper who walked the show, a choice that contradicts Velez’s remarks of her work being apolitical. Alongside Cooper was alongside looksmaxxer Clavicular, who is known for saying the N-word on livestreams, doing Nazi salutes and rubbing shoulders with
Andrew Tate. 

This convergence is not accidental. It highlights the way aesthetic movements are functioning as ideological pathways. What starts as an interest in non-toxic skincare can quickly evolve into broader alignment with reactionary politics. 

The aesthetic softens the entry point.  

The ideology follows. 

Looksmaxxers, tradwifes, and homesteading anti-vaxxers may seemingly be occupying disparate niches yet share a common aspiration: achieving the pinnacle of white beauty and ideals. Sustainable fashion and beauty are instrumental to the conservative revival as they offer a stripped back, ‘pure’ version of commercialized products, ideal for traditional and purist messaging. Ultimately, severing these products from their original connection to environmental imperatives. This has opened the floodgates for new brands to enter the market to capitalize on the conservative boom. 

The aesthetic softens the entry point. The ideology follows. 

When it comes to sustainability and climate discourse, I typically take a gentle approach. I’m used to hand holding when talking about climate. Meeting people where they are. Yet, I struggle to approach where we currently are from a middle-of-the-road perspective. There is no middle ground when movements built to address a climate crisis are hijacked by people who deny the crisis exists.

Sustainable spaces are radical, diverse, oppositional, and a direct counterculture rooted in a shared commitment to systemic change. Now, this space feels compromised. Convoluted messaging and strategic ambiguity have deliberately diluted the once visible set of values, allowing new, unaligned values to take hold.

What we’re left with isn’t just confusion, but a collapse of meaning. When opposing ideologies use the same language and look indistinguishable to the untrained eye, sustainability is stripped of its resistance. It becomes a tool for camouflage.  

@NOTHADLEIGH