Green Girls Like Glitter, Too.

After spending two hours reading labels in Sephora the other night, I filled my basket with products from lines I wanted to try, knowing full well that some of them would contain questionable ingredients ….but (I rationalized, in the midst of a spending frenzy), since there are still limited choices for totally clean cosmetics (it’s much easier to find a line of green skincare than it is to find an entire line of green makeup)….I felt I OWED it to my fellow greener consumers to shop with reasonable guidelines: I vowed to buy nothing with parabens, nothing with isopropyls and nothing with propylene glycol…which ruled out 95% of the products in the entire store. Yikes!

Here’s what I put in my basket:

I was excited to try Korres, a Greek line that offers skincare (which is carried by Whole Foods) and cosmetics that is being promoted as super natural and groovy. Sephora always gets great little trial packages that often include full size product, and Korres had one with a bronzer, a mascara, and a tube of their lipgloss for $36. Great deal, and the Sephora girls were very excited about the line. Korres also offers concealers in three shades, which have the dreamy application of YSL’s Touche E’clat (As a makeup artist who works with many brides, I am on a constant search for a eco-under eye concealer) After a cursory inspection of the mascara ingredients, I put the trial bag in my basket, along with a concealer and a lipliner.

Next, I grabbed a cheek stain from Tarte (from the “healthy couture” portion of the line) called Full Blossom. This product is a creamy, push up blusher that’s swirled color, and used to go by the name of “Natural Swirl”. While I was there, I also found a creamy bronzer for the legs (not a self tanner, just a physical bronzer) called “Glam Gams” that went into my basket.

Next, it was onto Bare Escentuals, where I found their “Weather Everything” eyeliner sealer, for use with mineral makeup to make it waterproof (This is an issue for brides, and a sticky one when it comes to ingredients). But so it goes, right? Wrong. I looked hard at the ingredients….and I just couldn’t do it. It went back on the shelf immediately. What I did find, however was an intense desire to leave the store with something sparkly…. My Sephora helper works as a makeup artist for Drag Queens, and understood my urge completely. She directed me to Urban Decay’s line of enormous body covering glitter brushes that look as though they were designed for use by an entire harem. Three colors, three scents, all named after drinks. I glittered myself up, and smelled like a scratch and sniff sticker of a cosmo, but she assured me that the entire Urban Decay line was vegan. I read the ingredients and moved on. I wound up in the middle promo aisle, and bumped smack into a display of Bare Escentual’s newest allover greenish gold shimmer, called “Genuine Jade Beauty Duo”.

It went into the basket with a giggle.

Next, I wanted to investigate the glosses a little more closely. Tarte had some cute gloss options in their “healthy” line, one was a set of four double ended glosses–a remarkable deal–and the other was a two-sided gloss with a color on one side, and tooth whitener on the other. Ingenius!!! I couldn’t decide. I put them both in my basket, and walked over to Carol’s Daughter glosses. Clean ingredients YAY! But I didn’t like the texture, or the look of them.

Finally (because the store was closing), I examined the contents of my basket and found that I couldn’t take home the Korres trial bag. The first ingredient in their gloss was polybutene. It was also the first ingredient in Tarte’s glosses. Polybutene is not only a petrochemical which makes glosses glossy, but also has a currently-being-researched relationship with formaldehyde. I vowed then and there to be more careful about the things that go directly on my lips, and put all of it back.

I left the store with my cheek stain, my creamy leg bronzer (both from Tarte) my Green Jade sparkles, and a petrochemical free smile on my lips.

Results?

The cheek color is gorgeous. The bronzer is cooling (it tauts goji berry, aciai, and pomegranate), and the subtle Jade sparkle is fantastic!! My husband’s eye’s lit up when he saw it and he immediately brushed it copiously across his very hairy arms. He asked if it was a) too girly for him to wear, and I assured him it would bring him good fortune and b) where they got the jade.

Good question.