The Language of Vegan Beauty: Lexical Choices in Rare Beauty’s Advertisements

Abstract

Beauty advertising increasingly associates products with natural ingredients, presenting nature as an essential source of beauty and personal care. However, such representations may primarily serve promotional purposes rather than communicate genuine environmental responsibility. This study explores the representation of nature through lexical choices in Rare Beauty cosmetic advertisements, focusing on how advertising language constructs associations between natural ingredients, beauty, and personal well-being. Employing a descriptive qualitative approach, the study analyzes ten selected excerpts from Rare Beauty product descriptions. The data were examined using Stibbe's ecolinguistic framework, particularly the concepts of evaluation, framing, salience, identity, and erasure. The findings reveal that lexical expressions such as botanical, antioxidant-rich, and nourishing construct nature as a source of nourishment and emotional comfort. Evaluation is realized through positively connotated expressions that present nature-derived ingredients as beneficial and desirable. Framing positions skincare and haircare as forms of holistic self-care, while salience foregrounds botanical ingredients, sensory experiences, and natural imagery. Furthermore, the advertisements implicitly construct consumer identities associated with natural beauty, wellness, and self-care. However, the analysis also identifies erasure through the limited representation of environmental concerns, particularly ingredient sourcing, production processes, and sustainability practices. The study concludes that Rare Beauty's advertising discourse uses ecological imagery not only to describe product ingredients and benefits but also as a persuasive linguistic resource that connects beauty consumption with naturalness and wellness. Nevertheless, the positive representation of nature does not necessarily indicate actual environmental responsibility, revealing a distinction between ecological representation and concrete sustainability commitments.