By Alexandra Mae
When it comes to this time of year, it takes a little extra effort not to be wasteful. With all of the festivities and excess surrounding us, we have to try and keep our blinders on and focus on the end goal – remaining ethical, conscious and mindful in everything we do.
However the chatter in my office at the moment is all about, “What are you wearing to the Christmas party?”, “I’ve found a great sequin jumpsuit!”, “How are you going to be doing your makeup?”. In all of the joy and excitement we forget that the sequin and glitter is just a shiny, pretty disguise for our sworn enemy – micro-plastics.
We start with considered makeup – party season style. Gone are the days when clean beauty meant barely the sheer foundation and using coconut oil as lip balm (although it works!) The beauty-sphere in 2019 has made huge efforts to become ‘cleaner’ with brands like Chantecaille campaigning for endangered species and Kjaer Weis providing the option to purchase refills in order to reduce waste. Here’s where to look for beautiful party season makeup that you can also use all year round!
The Base.
Industry icon Charlotte Tilbury has years and years’ worth of experience creating flawless faces for Hollywood film stars, Victoria’s Secret models and more. I visited a store a few years back, intrigued by the liquid contour product and armed with new knowledge that most of her offering was vegan, and all of it cruelty-free. After an in-store makeover by a lovely makeup artist named Eve, I ended up purchasing every product she had delicately applied to my face. I had never looked so flawless – which Eve accredited to the luxurious staple Magic Cream and smoothing ‘brightening youth glow’ primer. The foundation of choice for my combination skin was the ‘airbrush flawless finish’ (it does what it says on the tin). Three years down the line still nothing compares to my fail-safe Charlotte Tilbury base, and I would be confident in challenging anyone to a base-off.
Get the glow.
For highlight, nothing compares to the beautiful glow of RMS Beauty’s ‘luminizer’. Founded by Rose-Marie Swift, another heavyweight in Hollywood beauty, RMS Beauty breaks away from the pack of natural cosmetics. Not only are the products non-toxic, but they actually heal and benefit the skin.
RMS Beauty products are formulated with raw, food grade and organic ingredients in their natural state, allowing their living, healing attributes to penetrate and rejuvenate the skin. All products are free of harmful chemicals, synthetic preservatives, synthetic vitamins, and genetically modified ingredients (GMO) etc.
Most highlighters can be heavy on the skin and clog up our pores. Whereas the luminizer creates a glow that nourishes the areas of your skin that are susceptive to breakouts, and are also the areas where most want to apply highlight such as the cheekbones and nose.
Just remember that as clean as our edit of wonderful products are, no matter how many martini’s you’ve had – take off your makeup before bed. They’re good, but not magic!
The smoky eye.
Enter Hourglass – where conscious never felt so luxury. The perfect smoky eye is a combination of the ‘scattered light metallic eyeshadow’ (my personal favourites are Ray and Burnish), the ‘caution extreme lash mascara’, and ‘volumising fiber gel’ on the brows to finish. If you are going the extra mile with your glam this year add some vegan Sweed individual lashes on the outer corners of your eyes for a cat-eye look that Kendall Jenner would be proud of.
A red lip.
If you are channeling your inner Mariah this year, look no further than French lipstick brand La Bouche Rouge Paris. Their game-changing lipstick refill innovation and zero-waste attitude are schooling other brands on how simple it is to be sustainable.
After realising that the cosmetic industry is the third most polluting industry, after automotive and fashion, they decided their responsibility was to ‘create the desire to consume beauty differently.’
Pioneers in their field, La Bouche Rouge designed the very first eco-based and micro-plastic-free lipstick refill in France. The white part of the refill is the first eco-based mechanism created for lipsticks in the world and does not contain any micro-plastic.
They also mentioned that, ‘whilst the cosmetic industry is using plastic everywhere, mostly for ephemeral experiences in stores, we commit to a zero-plastic policy for our boutiques. We use reusable materials only, and our polybags are bio-based on compostable. Plastic does not belong on our lips. In our formulas we manage to avoid PMMA (plastics that aid glide and fill wrinkles and lines), as nobody wants to eat or ingest micro-plastics. We have replaced preservatives with a natural anti-oxidant, free from animal fat, parabens and paraffin.’ Now we never have to worry about the consequences of getting lipstick on our teeth again!
Alexandra Mae
Alexandra is an enthusiastic sustainability advocate with extensive knowledge on slow fashion, clean beauty and climate issues. You can find more about her work at her website, Styledbymae.
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