Juice Beauty Reflecting Lip Gloss in Guava, Lipstick in Fig, and Smashbox in Legendary
Mindful Eaters, you already know that you are what you eat. The food that goes inside you directly impacts the way you feel and look. That's why you're so gorgeous, bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed. Almost as/just as important as what you eat is what you put on you. Your skin is your largest organ, and it's meant to simultaneously protect you and be superabsorbent. Eliminate those toxins and you'll be even more gorgeous and energetic. We've covered body and beauty products before, now we're going to talk make-up (sorry boys).
I've never been a consistent lipstick wearer since I didn't like the staining, but I suddenly wanted that red 1940's look and became obsessed with red lipstick a few weeks ago. I thought it would be easy to find one since every makeup company makes at least one fire engine color. Then I decided to run my favorite brands through the Environmental Working Group's (EWG) Cosmetics Database and made two discoveries, one good and one bad. 1) the EWG Database had vastly improved. It was always in the MindfulEats Resource List, but we'd never featured it since it was clunky and hard to use. Now it's radically more user-friendly, and it's not perfect, but it's really an amazing resource. 2) All the most popular lipstick brands rate at least a 5 in toxicity (out of 10). Not good. No wonder they stain! The highest concerns are Neurotoxicity, Endocrine disruption, Persistence and bioaccumulation, Biochemical or cellular level changes. Nasty. I think my favorite is bioaccumulation - who wants to accumulate toxins in your body?
After a great deal of searching, I didn't find anything perfect. But I did find two brands of lipstick that ranked lower on the toxicity scale: Juice Beauty (2/10), and Smashbox (3/10). 0 is obviously the best, but these brands were the easiest for me to find. I only bought Smashbox (Legendary) to get the bright red - it wasn't my favorite red, but it was close enough and I'd rather have something slightly less toxic. Juice Beauty has really limited colors (two) but I love the product - it feels great and the gloss is nice too. I might have to start making my own lipstick, but until there's a MindfulMakeup line, I'm going to go with these.
What to do - Check Your Products
- Run your current body and beauty products through the EWG Database. Or if you're looking for something new, run your old product and other alternatives throught the database.
- Pick a threshold that you don't want anything over. For example, 4/10. Read up on the higher toxicity products. Some natural brands like Weleda might rank higher than that - find out why. some natural brands rate highly for potential allergans, and if you're not allergic, the product is ok for you.
- Throw away all the products that exceed your threshold. Yup, throw them away. You have permission.
- Replace your items with lower toxicity, natural products.
- Notice how much better you feel!
Resources:
- Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Cosmetics Database
- Body and beauty product and facial product recommendations (Mindul Eats)
- Mindful Eats Resource List for all kinds of useful links and info
