100% Pure: Inside the Clean Beauty Brand That Colors Makeup With Fruit

Most makeup gets its color from synthetic dyes. 100% Pure decided decades ago that fruit, vegetables, tea, and cocoa could do the job just as well, and built an entire beauty brand around that idea.

It's one of the original names in clean beauty, and one of the reasons the category exists in its current form. At VitalHub, we're adding 100% Pure to our affiliate family because the brand's approach aligns with what we look for: transparent formulas, real ingredients, and products people come back to rather than try once and abandon. Here's the story behind the brand, and the products that keep earning repeat customers.

Where 100% Pure Comes From

The brand was founded in California by Susie Wang, a chemist, and Ric Kostick. Wang's discovery of natural fruit and plant pigments, later patented as Fruit Pigmented® technology, became the foundation of the entire product line. Instead of relying on synthetic dyes or heavy metals, common in a lot of conventional makeup, the brand colors its lipsticks, blushes, and eyeshadows with ingredients like blackberry, pomegranate, and cocoa.

That single idea shaped everything that followed. The brand expanded from color cosmetics into skincare, keeping the same standard: plant-based, cruelty-free, and free from synthetic dyes across the board.

What Makes the Brand Different

A few things set 100% Pure apart from typical drugstore or even other clean-beauty labels:

• Fruit Pigmented® color technology. Real fruit and plant extracts replace synthetic dyes in makeup, which also means many products double as skin treatments, not just color.
• Cruelty-free and largely vegan formulations. The brand doesn't test on animals and builds most of its line without animal-derived ingredients.
• Ingredient transparency. Formulas lean on recognizable botanical names, aloe, green tea, rosehip, over long lists of synthetic fillers.
• A skincare-and-makeup hybrid philosophy. Many color cosmetics are formulated with skin-benefiting ingredients, blurring the line between makeup and treatment.

The Bestsellers Worth Knowing

With a catalog this large, a few products have become the ones people mention first, and repurchase most.

Vitamin C Serum

The brand's flagship skincare product. A stabilized Vitamin C formula in a hydrating aloe gel base, built to brighten tone and support collagen production without the irritation that stronger Vitamin C formulas can cause. It's become the product most associated with the brand's skincare side.

Coffee Bean Caffeine Eye Cream

A long-running favorite for de-puffing and brightening the under-eye area. Caffeine from green tea and coffee is paired with rosehip oil and antioxidants, and it's one of the brand's most consistently reordered products.

Fruit Pigmented® Ultra Lengthening Mascara

Pigmented with black tea instead of synthetic dyes, this mascara built a loyal following for lengthening lashes without clumping. It's a good entry point for anyone curious about the Fruit Pigmented® concept in action.

Maracuja Mascara

A newer, volumizing take on the mascara line, built around passion fruit oil. It coats lashes without the heaviness some volumizing formulas carry.

Fruit Pigmented® Healthy Foundation

A buildable, full-coverage foundation available in a wide shade range, colored with fruit pigments rather than synthetic dye or heavy metals. It's the brand's answer to the idea that clean formulas can't deliver real coverage.

BB Cream

A lighter alternative to full foundation, built with aloe, shea, and Vitamin E for hydration alongside light-to-medium coverage. A common pick for anyone wanting a natural, no-makeup makeup look.

Who This Brand Is For

100% Pure suits people who read ingredient lists before checking anything else, and who'd rather trade a little intensity for a formula they trust. It's a strong fit for sensitive or reactive skin types, anyone building a vegan beauty routine, and makeup wearers who like the idea of their color cosmetics doing double duty as skin treatments.

It's a weaker fit for anyone chasing maximum-strength actives or heavy-duty, full-coverage makeup meant to last through a 12-hour shift without a touch-up. The brand's whole identity is built around gentler, plant-first formulas, and that trade-off shows up across the range.

The Bottom Line

100% Pure earned its place in clean beauty by solving a real problem, synthetic dye in makeup, with a patented, plant-based alternative, and then carried that same philosophy into skincare. The bestsellers list reflects that consistency: gentle, vegan, ingredient-transparent formulas that people come back to rather than try once and abandon.

Disclosure: VitalHub is an affiliate partner of 100% Pure. This article contains affiliate links; if you purchase through our link, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.