Loose Powder

After reading Cyn’s review about a different Organic Wear Mascara, I was a bit hesitant on trying the latest Jumbo Lash Mascara, but since there was a Try Me Free sticker on the one I picked up, I thought I’d give it a go.

For those that like green products this product has the following listed on the box:

• 100% Free of Harsh Chemicals
• 100% Free of Synthetic Preservatives
• 100% Free of Parabens
• 100% free of GMO’s (Genetically Modified Organisms)
• 100% Free of Synthetic Colors
• 100% Free of Synthetic Fragrances
• 100% Cruelty Free
• 100% Natural Origin

I love the packaging, it’s not your conventional colorful tube, instead it is a metallic green and looks like a fancy leaf. However, the leaf like shape can get a bit clunky when stuffed into a small makeup bag, but the look of it is shiny and different.

The brush of the mascara is similar to the CoverGirl LashBlast brush which is fat brush with spikes, which I really like. Now for the important part if the mascara. When I applied the mascara it gives some volume and does lengthen my lashes. I would use this mascara every day, but after only a few hours of wear this mascara also flakes. I get little black flakes under my eyes and on my glasses. In addition to the flaking, I also get smudges on the bottom rim of my eyes.

I really wanted to like this mascara, because it gives my lashes volume and lengthens, in addition to, being very easy to clean off. Unfortunately, after a few uses and having to deal with flakes on my face, I have to say this organic and green mascara doesn’t work for me.

Up until recently, I’d been using either a St. Ives body wash or Neutrogena’s Body Clear body wash, since once in a while I get little breakouts on my back & shoulders The St. Ives I was using was their Oatmeal & Shea body wash, and I wasn’t super impressed with it. Always on the lookout for different and more natural options for skin & body care, I decided about a month ago to try a Burt’s Bees body wash. I had some reservations – I recently tried sample sizes of some of their shampoo & conditioner, and was sad to discover I hated it in every possible way. It smelled awful, didn’t lather in my hair well, and didn’t rinse out of my hair clean, so I didn’t feel like it had been washed. But I took the plunge and bought a bottle of their Naturally Nourishing Milk & Shea Butter body wash.

One of the things that drew me to this was a) I didn’t hate the smell, and b) the ingredient list looked short and uncomplicated as compared to most other body washes you look at. It doesn’t smell wonderful, but it doesn’t smell bad – it smells natural, if that makes any sense. It’s kind of sweet, but also smells like powdered milk, which is an ingredient. It’s much nicer smelling than the Grapefruit & Sugar Beet shampoo and conditioner I tried, which for some reason I really, really hated. Regarding the content, the only ingredients of any real concern toxics-wise is the ‘fragrance’ (according to Skin Deep), which is of concern because the actual contents of the ‘fragrance’ are not declared, so some can be eye or other irritants to some people. Skin Deep rates this product as a 4 on a scale from 1-10, making it only a ‘moderate hazard’. It looks good to me – better than what I’ve been using.

On to the actual performance of the body wash. When I tried it for the first time, I didn’t like how thin it is. It has about the consistency of a beaten egg and isn’t viscous or gel-like at all. I felt like I had to put a lot on my wash cloth to make it lather up. That said, when I did get an appropriate amount on my wash cloth & added a little water, it lathered up decently. I was also worried that it wouldn’t rinse off cleanly – I like that “squeaky” feeling of rinsing off soap & knowing I’m clean. This rinses off very cleanly! After washing with it my skin feels pretty moisturized, and not dry or tight at all. During the summer with humidity my skin doesn’t really get dry at all, so I’ll have to see how this performs in the cooler weather when my skin gets wicked dry, but I’m really liking this body wash for now!

I’d definitely recommend checking this out. It’s probably good for sensitive skin because of the lack of toxic crap ingredients, and it didn’t dry out my usually dry skin, and it doesn’t smell terrible. The bottle is lasting longer than I thought it would, even though I use a little extra to get the amount of lather that I like. Overall a great product from Burt’s!

Who knew that soft brushes could be bought without breaking the bank? For years I have been using cheap brushes I’ve found at discount stores, since I had always assumed that good quality soft brushes would cost me an arm and a leg and maybe an ear. But thanks to Cyn’s recommendation, she told me to give Ecotools a try.

Since there was another “Buy one get one free” sale at Rite Aid, which happens every so often, I picked up the 5 piece brush set for about $9.99 and the Retractable Kabuki Brush, but this review is for the 5 piece brush set.

This set comes with the following:

• Mineral Powder Brush
• Concealer Brush
• Eye Shading Brush
• Baby Kabuki
• Cosmetic Bag

Mineral Powder Brush

I used this brush for my mineral foundation and it works very well, and I just can’t get over how soft the bristles are.

Concealer Brush

This brush is still soft, but it is still stiff enough to apply concealer on a specific location without it spreading all over the place.

Eye Shading Brush

Again I love the softness of the brush, but I like my eye shading brushes to be a little stiffer. This brush might be a bit too soft for eye shading. Though I think it makes for good shadow blending and applications for a softer or natural look.

Baby Kabuki

I love this Baby Kabuki. This Kabuki is perfect to carry around because of its size. Because it’s not huge and not too small, I can apply my finishing powder all over my face quickly when I’m not at home. And like all the other brushes putting this on your face just feels like heaven.

Cosmetic Bag

This ecofriendly cosmetic bag is made of 55% hemp linen and 45% cotton. All the brushes fit neatly into the bag. However, the cream white color of the bag may get dirty very easily, but it is still a very cute and ecofriendly bag, but wish it was a darker color.

These brushes are “travel size” so they are nice and short and can fit into any makeup bag easily. The bristles are amazingly soft and they also pick up the powders very well. I have not noticed any shedding, and they don’t feel like they are going to shed anytime soon. The handles of the brushes are made from bamboo except for the Baby Kabuki. Bristles are synthetic taklon and 100% cruelty free, and lastly, the ferrule is made from recycled aluminum. So not only are these great brushes at a great price, but they are also earth-friendly.

After one usage of these brushes, I was in love, and I highly recommend these brushes. I will most likely review the other brush sets once I get my hands on them.

With everyone “going green” or picking environmentally friendly products, Physicians Formula’s Bamboo Wear definitely brings that to mind with its bamboo motifs on its boxes and pressed powders.

I only purchased the Bamboo Wear Compact, Mirror & Brush because Physicians Formula had a “Try Me Free” rebate special going on. I figured it couldn’t hurt, and I was looking for a new compact mirror that wasn’t an old Clinique mirror that came from free gift set my mother bought eons ago.

The exterior of the compact is very natural and sleek looking since it is made from bamboo and has a simple green colored bamboo motif on the front lid. The compact is on the thick side, but the three layers of the compact swivels open in any direction you prefer. Each section is snapped shut with a magnet. The magnet feels pretty secure and does not feel like it would snap open accidently in your purse or gym bag.

The top compartment is where the mirror and brush are stored. The bottom compartment is where the refill pan of either the Silk Face Powder Refill or Silk Bronzer Refill can be dropped in. The refill pan is held down by two magnets on the bottom. Since the compact does not come with a refill pan, I was hoping I could put the brush in the bottom compartment and just flip open the top section and use the mirror. Unfortunately the bottom compartment is thinner than the flat brush, so I couldn’t stash the brush below. Since I don’t care for the Physicians Formula flat brushes, I’ll probably just leave it out. However, I don’t think putting the brush and mirror in the same compartment was a good idea, since after usage, the residue powder from the brush would fall onto the mirror making it dusty. Then again this is a problem for all compacts.

I like the idea of a refillable compact. How many times have you finished a press powder compact and thought, “What a waste, the mirror is still good,” before chucking it into the garbage bin?  Unfortunately, the Silk Face Powder in this collection only has colors that ranges from light, lighter, to translucent though I may consider the Silk Bronzers in this collection.

Overall, the compact has a nice natural Eastern look and feel to the design. It gets a plus for being refillable and recyclable even though it can be a bit bulky.

About a week ago I discovered the Lush store at one of my local malls. It’s pretty new and I think I’d noticed it once or twice before, but never gone in. Big mistake going in, because now I’m going to keep going back and spending money.

The store partially drew me in because it is called “LUSH – Fresh Handmade Cosmetics”, which made me think they also had makeup. They don’t. It’s all bath/body/hair stuff, but what wonderful stuff it is! The products are all-natural/vegetarian, with over 70% being vegan. They use natural ingredients and about two-thirds of their items are preservative-free; the products are hand-made, they do not test on animals & don’t do business with suppliers that do, and they use ethical suppliers for their ingredients (this is all from their website).

I’ve been in twice so far, and the salesgirls have been very friendly and eager to help, but not obnoxious. The store smells delightful and it’s hard to choose just a few things to buy! My first time in, I started with two things: the Buffy body bar (bottom in pic) and the Therapy massage bar (top in pic).

The Therapy massage bar is a shea and cocoa butter bar with lavender & orange oil for a relaxing scent. They use organic fair-trade shea butter and cocoa butter for this product. It is designed to be massaged into the skin and not leave oil on your skin; it does absorb in pretty well. Cocoa butter is good for stretch marks & they advertise it as particularly good for pregnant bellies. Personally, I’ve been using cocoa butter products for years now on the stretch marks on my hips (from weight loss/gain, not pregnancy, lol) and it works very well to minimize them and really moisturize the whole area.

I picked up this bar because of my love for cocoa butter and the yummy scent: it smells like other cocoa butter products I’ve had before, but with a hint of lavender. The girl at the store explained that the reason the bar has one raised bump and three little holes on it is because apparently one out of every four babies is born with an outtie belly button, and this bar is marketed as being good for pregnant women. Cute! I’ve used this about a week now & it’s moisturizing, working great on my hips, smells yummy, so overall a great product; however, it basically does the same thing as the Cococare cocoa butter stick I have been using for a long time, which costs less than $2 at drugstores. I probably won’t buy the Therapy massage bar again just because of the cost as compared to the cococare stick, but it is really a great product.

Now onto the Buffy body bar. I cannot even begin to express how much I LOVE this! It is a scrub bar of shea and cocoa butter mixed with ground rice, almonds and aduki beans for exfoliating. It smells like shea and maybe a little oatmeal-y to me, but there’s no oatmeal in it – not a delicious scent, but I like it. I bought the smaller one because it was cheaper, have used it for over a week every other day, and it’s almost gone, so I will buy the larger one next time.

(Buffy after a few uses, showing the abrasiveness of it)

I use this bar in the shower right before I get out: just scrub wherever you want, then rinse & dry off. It leaves your skin feeling like you’ve already put lotion on - it’s not greasy, and your skin feels just so soft & smooth. I have a huge problem area of dry skin in the winter on my hips, and I usually have to slather on lotion after a shower because it gets itchy.  I use the Buffy bar and don’t feel the need to put any lotion on whatsoever, and it has eliminated dry flaky skin I get on my hips. It is actually a bit abrasive so be careful if your skin is super sensitive, but I love it on my arms & legs in addition to any other dry skin areas. I will keep buying this again and again, I can’t say enough good things about it!

One other thing; at Lush they use very little packaging. The bars, soaps, bath bombs etc are sold without any packaging and displayed in bins and stacks (which makes for pretty cute displays). They put things into little paper baggies when you buy them, for which they use as much post-consumer recycled materials for as they can, or you can buy tins for $2.95, which are re-usable of course. I bought tins with these two items.

 So to conclude, Lush is a new favorite of mine. I’ve made a second purchase  already and will be continuing to go back to try things out. If you have one near you and haven’t been in, absolutely check it out.

EDIT 5/2/10: DO NOT leave your buffy bar in a hot car Mine melted to liquid in the car yesterday on the 6-hour drive home from Jersey. I was so sad last night when I got in the shower & realized it was totally dead! I don’t know what you can do to remedy this if it has to be in a hot location, but my apartment gets pretty hot in the summer so I’m going to have to figure something out.

In my efforts to start replacing items I use with more eco-friendly/less toxic items, I have started doing research on product ingredients, “green” companies/natural products companies etc. Some search I did earlier led me to a website called GoodGuide, which rates products in the categories of health, environment, and society; i.e. how healthy the product is for you, how the company does with energy management & other environmental concerns, and customer satisfaction, quality & safety, philanthropy etc. Products are rated on a scale between 0 and 10; the higher the score, the better the product is overall - I think they score ‘health’, ‘environment’ and ‘society’ all out of 10 then average them for a final rating. They also list all the product’s ingredients and whether they are a “controversial ingredient” or an “ingredient of concern” and provide information on effects these controversial or concerning ingredients can have.

While I liked GoodGuide because of the environmental friendliness and society ratings, Cyn directed me to another site, Skin Deep (cosmeticsdatabase.com), which basically does the same thing but goes more in depth. Products are given a score between 0 and 10, with a product rated 10 being a high hazard. They list much more information about a product’s ingredients and the hazards associated with the ingredient than GoodGuide does. It does not, however, contain any data about the company’s ‘green-ness’ or ethical/societal practices. Skin Deep is run by the Environmental Working Group, who describe their mission as “to use the power of public information to protect public health and the environment.” (they also run a site called the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides, a website about pesticide use in produce) Being in public health, this group actually interests me on a number of different levels, but right now we’re focusing on cosmetics & personal care products.

So, after finding GoodGuide, I started browsing through the site for items I use. I settled on my Aussie Hair Insurance spray conditioner to check out first.

I realized it probably was not the most natural product in the world, but was still disappointed to find some questionable ingredients and a couple of not-so-good ratings for the company in environment and society. Here is the page. GoodGuide has two ingredients listed as controversial: DMDM Hydantoin, a preservative which can release trace amounts of formaldehyde, and “fragrance”, which could contain anything – apparently there is no requirement for companies to disclose what they use for fragrances, and many contain compounds that can be irritants or allergens to some people. The company received average or below-average marks on several other items including energy management, air pollution and quality & safety (just a disclaimer: I have not done further research on these matters for this company, I am just rehashing it here). In total, this product received a rating of 6.6 out of 10 from GoodGuide

After I was made aware of Skin Deep, I checked out this product there too (Here is their page on it). At first I was a bit more concerned reading about my Hair Insurance on this site than on the other (and remember, this site does not take environmental or ethical practices of the company into account for anything). However, once I looked over the ingredient details a bit I realized they were basically the same. The DMDM hydantoin and “fragrance” are listed first and given a 9 and 8 rating, respectively. They go into more detail about the other ingredients too, even though none of the others listed are rated over a 4. Concerns with the less hazardous items included allergies & irritation. The product was rated a 6 out of 10 (“moderate hazard”) from Skin Deep.

The biggest concern with this item, based on the little bit of research I’ve done, is the formaldehyde from the preservative hydantoin. Here is Skin Deep’s formaldehyde ingredient page (lots of detailed information there), and it rates the chemical itself as a 10 out of 10, or a high hazard. It is a known carcinogen and can irritate eyes, throat & nose when inhaled – obviously at least a mild concern when it’s in a mist you’re spraying on your hair.

Now, let me actually review the product. A few months ago I realized I wanted to try a spray conditioner to help with the frizzy halo my hair gets after I blow dry it. I’d had some years ago from a different company (might’ve been Pantene) that I couldn’t find anymore, and someone recommended I try Aussie. I picked it up for not too much money and started using it right after I blow-dry my hair. The bottle actually says to use it when your hair is damp, but I’ve found it’s best for me when I use it on dry hair. It works wonders! I get way fewer frizzies & flyaways after using it; my hair stays nice and smooth & shiny, and doesn’t make it feel significantly heavier or greasier when I use it. I don’t go overboard with it, just spray nice & lightly over my whole head. I usually wash my hair at night, and when I wake up the next morning my hair usually looks amazing. I have been really happy with it.

Now, don’t get me wrong; after reading up on the ingredients in this spray and the health concerns about them, I am not freaking out, throwing it away and sure that I’m going to get cancer from it. I was a little disappointed to learn about the undesirable ingredients and will probably look for something to replace this when I’m done with it, but chances are, if I can’t find something that works as well, I’ll keep using it, albeit a little more sparingly. I’ve been having problems with my eyes feeling dry and irritated lately, and even though I’m sure it’s a number of different things contributing to that, this spray could, for all I know, be aggravating my symptoms. I am being careful not to use too much and careful not to get it in my eyes.

In conclusion, this product works exactly as I’d hoped it would and I like it. However, researching what’s in some of your favorite products can lead to a rude awakening if you are interested in using eco-friendly, non-toxic products. This product isn’t as bad as I’m sure some are, but do your research – you might be surprised! Your favorite product may be more toxic than you realized and the company that produces it might be dumping toxins in the creek out back. However, one thing to remember if you find a questionable ingredient in a product you use is don’t freak out! Do your research, be objective, read the material. I care about trying to support companies that are environmentally conscious and I prefer trying to use more natural products that are better for me and the environment; if you feel the same way, it’s worth it to do the research.