Hello Lovelies,
Welcome back! And welcome if you are new here xoxo
How are all of you, I hope you are well?
Today I will do a bit of a different post, a Clean Beauty tag one. I was watching Andie’s The Green Queen Clean Beauty Tag video (here) and it turns out the tag was created by the Conscious Bee (see her video here) whom I just discovered in a series of serendipitous moments. Loving what I saw, I self tagged into it, because that’s how I roll 🙂 Both ladies did Youtube videos, Get Ready With Me style, but since I am a blogger, not a Youtuber, I will improvise a bit – I will answer questions first and will link to some of the make up post after, pretending I was sort of doing make up all along. There are quite a few I’ve done lately, what can I say, I have rediscovered my love for make up 🙂
See my Natural Beauty interview with adorable Andie here and let’s get into the tag, shall we?
CLEAN BEAUTY TAG:
1. When did u switch to green beauty and why?
That was around a decade ago, after accidentally discovering Janey Lee Grace’s book Imperfectly Natural Woman – I was looking for some light read for the weekend and that book changed my life! Many years later I managed to get Natural Beauty interview with Janey Lee Grace, see that post here. Funny story with that book, I had to buy it not one, not two, but four times, because after reading it I started lending the book to everyone around me and I didn’t get it back a couple of times. So I had to buy it for myself again and again, and it was the exact same book I did my very first Instagram giveaway with 🙂 Before that I was naively assuming that all the products on the shelves go through rigorous testing for safety and ingredients aren’t harmful for humans in any way shape or form- oh boy, how wrong I was! I was sick to my stomach to find out how many harmful ingredients are in our skincare (formaldehyde in babies products for God’s sake, don’t get me started on this!!) and I started switching out my products there and then. But the trouble was, clean beauty products were soooo hard to find back then – most people (millennials) will have a hard time believing this, but there were NO online shops back then, so I was having the hardest time switching my products. Yes, you read that right, no Detox Markets, no Love Lula or anything. In fact, I can credit Janey Lee Grace for my blog too – I was having the worst time finding not only my best natural products, but any natural products around me at all, so I remember thinking to myself “this is nuts, what if someone is going through the same transformation and does not know where to start or where to go, I better blog about this to let people know”. So that’s how my blog started, out of desire to help out fellow green beauty sisters – and that’s still a driving force behind my blog to this day! I was here before it became popular and way before PR and marketing was happening. Up until two years or so ago I was purchasing all the products myself, so if that doesn’t prove I am not in it for the money, then I don’t know what will. Fortunately the green beauty scene exploded since – and that makes me very happy! I kind of made it my mission to help all the ladies (and gents) to switch to natural and organic products. Clean beauty world has an answer to any conventional product out there, and it is a proven fact the products work – and they work even better! Just check my post on more than 20 natural dupes for Nars Orgasm here for example – I worked really hard on that post 🙂
2. Do you remember your first green makeup product? Did it work well for you?
Yes I do – it was a Dr Hauschka mascara and for then-unemployed me it cost me eye wateringly amount of money, I remember wincing when parting with my cash – and to make matters worse, it didn’t do anything apart from making my lashes black and it started crumbling in the first week. I remember thinking “oh no, what if all the natural products are so expensive and work so bad?”. Fortunately I was able to find a Holy Grail product in every single category since, you can see them here. I sifted through a ton of products to find good ones that work amazingly well. And they are at all price points too – you don’t need to spend a ton of money in every single category. I choose to splurge on skincare (I am five minutes to forty after all, I kind of need to) and am quite happy to save on body care for example. No money? No problem, use coconut oil as your body moisturizer! Make up? I have it at all price points starting from just 2.50€ going to up to 50€ for a palette. I think that is quite reasonable, no?
3. Have you noticed a change in your skin/overall health since the switch?
Yes! My skin was a disaster before the switch – dry, super sensitive, reactive to every single product I have tried and more and more adult acne as the time went by – and amazingly I never attributed my skin’s conditions are caused directly by the products I was using. I guess I was blindly falling for the “I am worth it” marketing hype – oh the naivety of me! Insert face palm emoji here 🙂 I see history repeating itself with my elder daughter, who’s is convinced she needs certain ingredients and products for her skin to look good. She buys her own products (oftentimes conventional, resistance to parents, sigh) but she reacts to them more often than not, so I am strategically suggesting natural alternatives and am doing a happy little dance every time she does not reject something. I have to say she and I started on the wrong foot with all things natural – I gave her my own DIY deodorant and it burned her pits – turns out she is allergic to baking soda! not only in deodorants but in toothpastes and dry shampoos, everything 🙁 She rejected all natural products for a couple of years since then, and I can’t say I blame her. Slowly but surely she is coming to our side, but we have a long way to go. I do not push her in any way shape or form, I am not one of those green beauty bullies with scare mongering tactics, you might notice that in a way I blog too – I simply let people know about amazing natural stuff and let people think and choose for themselves.
Whoops, Renata, get back to the question, will you? Yes, my skin balanced itself in a month when I switched to natural products and the acne never came back – amazing or what?
4. Is there anything you wish was different about the green beauty space?
Yes, a few things come to mind. Price points for one (a whole topic on it’s own, for another time maybe, there are few things worth their price point, but not all) limited shade ranges when it comes to make up; scare mongering tactics needs to go, as well as greenwashing.
5. What is the nr 1 ingredient you avoid in cosmetics?
Fragrance, parabens, bismuth oxychloride, phenoxyethanol – although the latter is increasingly hard to avoid, it is everywhere!
6. What are your favorite 3 make up products you discovered thus far?
Well, if we are talking about make up only, my first love would be Peachy Keen by Inika – it is a natural and more gorgeous version of Nars Orgasm, even though it does not look like much in most of online shop photos. Trust me, it will get you all heart eyed once you will get it and put it on. Very concentrated, so the jar will last you for years, I promise! Nars Orgasm was the last product I switched, but having found Peachy Keen, I haven’t looked back.
Next would be my trusty workhorse for many many years, a product used and appreciated daily; I have stuck with it going through branding and packaging changes – please step forward Hynt Beauty Duet Perfecting Concealer! By far the most full coverage concealer in the green beauty or not green beauty and it is something I keep coming back to no matter how many other products I have tried. I have not one but two reviews of it on my old blog (see here and here) so I won’t be going into too many details here. So well worth the money, I have my last jar for well over the year and I am yet to hit pan or see a change in the formula (as in going bad) when my newer concealers are starting to smell a bit off after six months. I can’t praise it enough, really. Just one teeny tiny thing, dear Hynt Beauty, if you are reading this, please introduce a shade in between of Light and Medium – those two shades need to have a love child, pronto! You have introduced a shade in between for the darker shades, now please do so for the lighter ones too, pretty please? As you can guess, I happen to be in between the shades and would love to be able to buy just one jar instead of two at a time. The formula is very impressive, so that’s why I keep buying two shades, but I have heard many and many ladies say the same thing. Once again, Hynt Beauty, pretty please?
and last but not least I am tossed up between two products, W3LL People Biotint SPF30 Moisturizer and Hynt Beauty Aria Pure Lipstick in Pinkibelle.
Maybe let’s go with Pinkibelle, as W3LL People isn’t available in EU, which upsets me to no end!
SEE MORE OF NATURAL AND ORGANIC PRODUCT SWATCHES HERE
7. Name your 3 top favorite skincare products?
Do you guys know how hard this question is?? I have to say both moisturizers and Antioxidant Booster by Bella Aura Skincare (review) – I can’t live without them!
*Update on why I no longer stand by this brand, even though I still think their products are fantastic here, scroll down to the very end.
8. What brands do you really want to try but still haven’t?
My wishlist is probably two miles long, haha! The first brands that come to mind are Okoko Cosmetiques, Lovinah, Osea, Live Botanicals, Blue Beautifly, De Mamiel, Odacite, Mayia Chia, Aether Beauty, Laurel, Antonym, Amly – do I need to go on? 🙂
9. What type of product do you buy the most of?
Toothpaste, rinse, body wash (mostly soap, Black African soap preferably). Body Oils. Shampoo. From beauty products, mascara. Same like a regular person, really.
10. Do you like trying new skincare products or do you keep a certain routine?
A bit of both really. My uber sensitive and dermatitis prone skin does not allow me much room for wriggle, I am most likely to react to any product, even to the ones everyone is raving about. Having found my perfect skincare in Bella Aura, I kind of don’t want to test or try anything else, plus having put my skin through a marathon (and burning it more than once!) for the sake of judging in the green beauty awards (see more on my IG), I don’t really want to try anything else for the time being. But still there comes a product from time to time that calls my name organically and I get that magical experience – I am talking about May Lindstrom Blue Cocoon as an example, see more in my recent Favourites post here.
11. If you could only buy from one brand, which one would you choose? Pick one for makeup and one for skincare.
Skincare, easy – Bella Aura! Make up, it would have to be between Inika (amazing blushes and mascara) and Hynt Beauty (concealer and lipstick Holy Grails), but W3LL People are also very high up there – oh, what to do??
12. What do you love about makeup? What about skincare?
I love that make up lets me create the best version of myself – isn’t that amazing how much more confident you feel when you look great? Skincare is my everyday treat to myself, my “me time”, my self care. What’s not to love, am I right or am I right?
13. Name your favorite thing about the Green Beauty community?
The support! I am so so grateful to green beauty community for welcoming me with open arms. Up until then I was kind of not belonging or should I say not feeling welcome anywhere really, and this is where I feel at home and feeling like I am contributing to a great cause. Andie’s comment about other women struck a chord with me, all the backstabbing in my life came from other women, even close friends, so I was kind of floating around in life not feeling that love, support, girl or sister power, up until I discovered the green beauty community. Huge thanks each and every one of you!
(ps. catty behaviour still happens in the green beauty world, this is an industry like any other industry. Fact of life)
Now that all of the questions are answered, let’s pretend I was doing make up at the same time 🙂 I will link three of my last make up posts, so check out the one which look you like the most – I didn’t mention any make up in my recent Favourites post, but any product from those posts below is still a strong favourite to date. Or skip them all together. Your call. Thanks for reading anyway!
SEE ALL NATURAL MAKE UP LOOK WITH CREAM PRODUCTS HERE
SEE SARYA COUTURE MAKE UP LOOK (AND A REVIEW) HERE
SEE A PURE ANADA MAKE UP LOOK USING LIP & CHEEK ROUGE (& REVIEW) HERE
So that’s all for now, see you here next Tuesday if not sooner. Once again, thanks for reading! Oh, before I forget – tag! You are it 🙂
Please like and share my posts on social media, it really helps to get the green beauty word out – and you will forever have my gratitude!
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Lots of Love,
Renata.
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