Karibo Beauty Review

Written by Tyler Swell — Edited by Cathy Rozyczko on February 9, 2021

Karibo Beauty is a CBD skincare brand founded by a beauty insider with decades of experience in the industry — the beauty industry, that is. While they offer a highly affordable line of seemingly effective topicals, they read more as a cosmetic company than a CBD one. Karibo Beauty is currently available both online and at select CVS locations in California, but the brand currently ranks low with our methodology.

Karibo Beauty was founded by Shana King, a mom and ‘beauty insider’ with two decades of experience developing products for some of the big-name brands. She started the line to make CBD skin care that balances and benefits the skin available to everyone.

And King does well by her mission in making the line affordable. She was quoted in a blog post as saying, “You shouldn’t have to pay big bucks to be able to take care of your skin; it’s a benefit everyone should enjoy.”

The Karibo team apparently includes Ph.D. product developers that use ‘trailblazing beauty science’ to infuse ‘lab-formulated skincare ingredients with beneficial botanicals.’ All their CBD products are made in America and third-party tested for safety, according to the company.

A plus? No animal testing or artificial colors and dyes here.

Let’s get into the Karibo Beauty catalog that features five CBD topicals that won’t break the bank. FYI, this line contains a heavy amount of synthetics. There’s nothing too scary like parabens, but as always, we will call out the not-so-clean ingredients like we always do:

• CBD face mask – Infused with rosemary extract and black licorice extract, this product has 10mg of CBD. Synthetic call-outs include triethanolamine and EDTA.
• CBD facial moisturizer – This non-greasy formula contains 50mg of CBD and aloe to keep skin hydrated and refreshed. EDTA, phenoxyethanol, and ceteareth-20 are also inside.
• CBD lotion – This is also a non-greasy formula for the hands and body with 100mg CBD plus vitamins E and A for optimal skin health. However, this is probably our least favorite option due to the high amount of chemicals, including dimethicone, behentrimonium methosulfate, propylene glycol (PG), phenoxyethanol, and steareth-21.
• CBD hydrating gel – Karibo’s CBD facial gel delivers a calming sensation and an apparent glow with 35mg cannabidiol and hyaluronic acid for anti-aging properties. This is one of the cleaner offerings with the only sketchy ingredients being dimethicone and phenoxyethanol.
• CBD cream – Finally, this is like a panacea for the skin that can be used on both face and body. It contains 100mg CBD and aloe along with synthetics ceteareth-20, triethanolamine, phenoxyethanol, and EDTA.

Obviously, we’re not a fan of synthetic ingredients, particularly in high amounts. However, these ingredient choices do not hold weight with our rating system — we leave it to you as the consumer to decide whether or not you’re OK with them.

So, let’s talk about what DOES affect Karibo Beauty’s rating…

The brand gets the Quality Badge since they source their hemp from an organic farm in Colorado and utilize ethanol extraction. But we only found out the extraction method because we figured out their supplier, Minted Leaf; Karibo did not come out and state how they extract their CBD oil.

And the Safety Badge is a definite no-go. The only available test online was for Minted Leaf CBD capsules, a product not sold by Karibo Beauty.

Also concerning, this test showed trace amounts of delta-nine THC. Karibo Beauty states multiple times that their CBD oil is broad spectrum with 0% THC and will not show up on a drug test. What gives?

Finally, with no charitable endeavors or particularly innovative practices, Karibo Beauty is a solid 2/5 for now. If they can get more in line with top-of-the-line CBD vendor practices versus focusing on being a top beauty brand, we can see them getting more badges in the future.

Bottom Line – Karibo Beauty has decades of experience in the beauty industry, but we’d like them to focus more on providing current lab tests and charity to align with premium CBD vendors.