This Canadian label keeps it clean with plant-based, vegan skincare that actually works—no nasties, no fluff.
Connie Lo and Laura Burget founded Three Ships Beauty in 2017 in Toronto after spending months researching skincare ingredients and realizing that most "natural" products on the market were either ineffective or not truly natural. The two met at a University of Waterloo business competition and bonded over a shared frustration: why couldn't skincare be both plant-based and backed by clinical results? They launched the brand from their apartment with $3,300 in savings and a commitment to radical transparency.
Three Ships publishes the full ingredient list, sourcing information, and clinical testing results for every product on its website. Each formula is plant-based, vegan, cruelty-free, and made with ingredients that score well on the EWG (Environmental Working Group) safety database. The brand avoids synthetic fragrances, parabens, sulfates, and phthalates, but what sets it apart from other clean beauty brands is its emphasis on clinical proof. Products undergo third-party clinical trials to verify their efficacy claims, an investment that most indie beauty brands skip.
Three Ships grew quickly from a direct-to-consumer operation into a brand stocked at major retailers. The company's products are now available at Sephora Canada, Indigo, and hundreds of independent retailers. Key products include the Jelly Drops Hyaluronic Acid Serum, the SkinHero Bio-Retinol Serum (using bakuchiol as a plant-based retinol alternative), and the Purify Aloe Gel Cleanser. Price points typically range from $22 to $45 CAD, positioning Three Ships in the accessible-luxury segment of clean skincare.
All Three Ships products are formulated and manufactured in Toronto, a detail the founders highlight as a point of pride and quality control. The company has won multiple Canadian beauty industry awards and was featured on Dragons' Den. Lo and Burget have been vocal about the challenges of building a beauty brand in Canada, where the domestic market is smaller and retail partnerships require different strategies than in the U.S.