vegansaurus!

Monthly box subscription…of vegan beauty products!  »

You know we at Vegansaurus loves boxes of surprises! So far, the subscription boxes we’ve come across have been mostly about food, but Ethical Ocean has a new subscription box of vegan beauty products! I’ve been assured that the True Beauty box is always all-vegan. 

I’m kind of a beauty product fanatic so I’m pretty stoked! It’s $30/month but you get mostly full-size stuff instead of all samples. And besides being vegan, they also say, “Your beauty box will NEVER include synthetic preservatives, emulsifiers, fragrances or colors. Our products are phthalate and paraben-free.” So that’s nice.

OMG I love surprises!

Cosmetic animal testing banned in the European Union!  »

That’s right! As of March 11, “the marketing, import, and sale of animal-tested cosmetics and their ingredients will no longer be legal in the EU.” Congratulations to PCRM, who did a lot of work lobbying for the ban, and here’s to passing a similar ban in the U.S. Cosmetics don’t need to be tested on animals any longer. Science has moved beyond it; here’s hoping we can move society beyond it, too.

[Photo by Ahmad Hashim via Flickr]

Purely Posh: Sephora for vegans!   »

Sarah reviewed Purely Posh a few months ago but I got a chance to sample some freebies from them as well and now I will give you my take!

Purely Posh is an online makeup/skincare/etc. store that specializes in natural beauty products. But it’s not all granola-crunchy-like, it is well-designed and modern. It’s not entirely vegan but the great thing about it is that you can search the products by vegan, organic, gluten-free, fragrance-free,* and U.S.-made so that you can find just the products that pertain to your concerns! Huzzah! Purely Posh sent me the lovely vegan eyeshadow you see above and the vegan lipstick pictured below to try out.

The eyeshadow is by Lauress and the color is moonbeam. It’s vegan, gluten-free, and made in the U.S. I thought it was a great color. My coworker said it really made my eyes pop! That is nice, no? It was subtle too though which is nice as well. I mean I wore it to work and it wasn’t like I was lit up like a disco ball the way our lovely front desk woman loves to be. Bless her glittering heart.

The lipstick they sent me to try is the Emani hydrating lip color in Dolce. I must say it is hydrating! Usually lipstick makes my lips feel dry and gets crackly and whatnot; Not this stuff! The color is very similar to my natural lip color except with a lot more punch. So it’s obvious I have lipstick on but it’s very understated (on me at least) at the same time. Lovely!

Now, guess what! Purely Posh is offering a 5% discount to Vegansaurus readers for the next two weeks! Just enter the coupon code “vegansaurus” at checkout (or wherever). It expires on February 18th. Go forth and sparkle! 

*OMG I know you fragrance-haters are stoked! It must be hard to be irritated by fragrances, they put them in god-dang everything. You have my sympathies. 

Ethical Vegan Makeup To Make Your Girlfriend Look Even More Gorgeous  »

UPDATE! It appears the mascara reviewed is NOT vegan. The eyeshadow is. Purely Posh has a good marking system, we just got confused! Forgive us.

Are you looking for ethical, organic, eco-friendly, gluten-free, completely vegan makeup? I know Urban Decay says they’ll stay ethical (I am glad to hear it and really hope that’s true!) but if you’re looking for a huge variety of vegan makeup products that fit the above description, Purely Posh offers lots and lots of options at really affordable prices!

Purely Posh sent me free samples of two products: Mineral Lights Eyeshadow in color Shangri La and Mineral LashLuxe Mascara in color Onyx. The amazing beauty/model/vegan health and juice coach Courtney Pool radiated with her Purely Posh makeup-bedazzled eyes. Look at those blues pop, ow ow! I don’t really wear makeup but I definitely know sexy vegan gorgeous when I see it! Mmm hmm!

According to founder and owner Jen Gamez, Purely Posh was created to bring awareness to the dangers of chemicals in beauty care products. Our skin is a fast-track to toxic exposure as it absorbs pretty much everything. According to their website, “On average each woman applies 12 different products to her skin each day, totaling about 500 different chemicals.” Wow. Jen says she just wants her customers to feel at peace that they are applying safe and ethically sourced products to their bodies. That sounds and looks pretty radical to me! Get Purely Posh online.
 

Good news, everyone: Urban Decay says it will remain cruelty-free  »

Thanks, peta2, for contacting Urban Decay and demanding answers following last week’s announcement that L’Oréal had bought the beloved cruelty-free cosmetics company. Peta2 reports that Urban Decay has “assured PETA in writing that its animal testing policy will not change.”

Are you relieved? I am really relieved. Also super-happy to have an excuse to post a photo of happy bunnies. Cosmetic animal testing is for the jerkiest jerks.

[Photo by Mark Philpott via Flickr]

Pro or con: L’Oréal buys Urban Decay  »

Vegansaurus loves makeup, though we of course only support vegan makeup companies, because duh. Urban Decay makes vegan makeup that is high quality and totally gorgeous;  wearing it makes you look and feel fantastic, for reasons both superficial and profound.

Today, however, devilish old L’Oréal announced that it has acquired Urban Decay. Now, Urban Decay has been owned by luxury brands LVMH and the Falic Group, before being sold to a private equity fund, so it’s not like it’s been sitting alone on a pedestal making sparkly vegan eyeshadow since 1996. And L’Oréal did partner with the U.S. EPA earlier this year to work on eliminating animal testing, however hard you have to side-eye the world’s biggest cosmetics conglomerate promising no more bunny torture to make mascara.

Companies need capital to keep going. We want Urban Decay to continue to produce its wonderful products, create new ones, and make us all pretty without harming animals. A notoriously wicked parent company doesn’t mean all the brands under its umbrella will be wicked, too. What do you think? Will you still buy Urban Decay? Could this push L’Oréal toward ending its animal-cruelty practices sooner? That’d be the best outcome, but how realistic is it?

Product Review: Benecos makeup and True Natural self tanner!  »

Hey, pals! Here I am, back with another makeup review. The company this time is Benecos by loveTrueNatural. Not everything is vegan but the line is all natural and never tested on animals. The descriptions clearly state if a product is vegan. Of course, all the stuff I tried is vegan! Adoy.

Yes so they sent me a couple of vegan products to try for free. The first thing I tried is the loose mineral powder. I love this stuff! It comes with it’s own poof so I like to keep it in my purse to powder my nose on occasion. I got it in “light” and it was a little bit too light for me, but still great. It offers a lot of coverage, it’s not a sheer powder. 

Next I tried the eyeshadow and eyebrow designer. Here’s me:

As you can see, the eyeshadow colors are very light and natural-looking. They go on great and blend well. I think I could have put more color on but I think it’d still be very sheer and natural looking. So if that’s the style you want, this is for you. You’ll have to look elsewhere for something more dramatic. I liked that the brow pencil has it’s own little brush but the pencil wasn’t subtle enough for me. I have pretty dark brows though so I don’t usually use an eyebrow pencil. 

I also tried the True Natural self tanner. Self tanner always makes me nervous but this was pretty good. I just had a subtle tan the next day so it wasn’t like some cray orange. I did have some streaking by my feet but I think I applied it unevenly, so just be mindful of that.

All in all, great products! If you want organic makeup for a subtle, natural look, Benecos is for you. And if you’ve been looking to dabble in self tanner, I’d give this a shot. It’s not dramatic but if you don’t want to be a pasty ghost, this will help. That’s all for today!

The Body Shop has limited-edition, cruelty-free makeup, endorsed by Lily Cole!  »

Two things I love, you guys: cruelty-free makeup, and Lily Cole! As a wide-faced red-haired person, I’ve always wanted to look less Cabbage Patch Kid and more Lily Cole, but genes work in mysterious ways. (They are also why I’m not a supergenius like Megan Rascal.)

The point is, the Body Shop has put out a line of vegan mostly cruely-free makeup, endorsed by Lily Cole, which includes lip stuff, cheek stuff, and accessories, and it seems reasonably priced. It contains “no bug shells, no fish scales, no animal hair,” which is how all beauty products should be, but aren’t, because people are lazy jerks who don’t want to evolve. Unfortunately some of it contains beeswax and lanolin. Thanks to our commenters for reading better than me.

Affordable, mass-produced, readily available vegan nearly cruelty-free makeup! Just delightful. It looks like Ecouterre has previews of some of the products that aren’t available on the Body Shop’s website yet, so check them out, get to the mall, take a couple laps, and head into the Body Shop to demand they sell you all of the pretty vegan — as in, not the non-vegan stuff — makeup, toute de suite.

Product Review: Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics!  »

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics is an absolutely awesome vegan makeup brand! They sent me some free stuff to try and now I will tell you all about it!

From their FAQ:

What’s with the ‘Vegan’ thing?
In a time when many cosmetic companies make the claim that their products are “Cruelty Free” simply because Animal Testing has become unfashionable and less cost-effective, OCC felt it was necessary to raise the bar on this issue. We pledge never to use animal-derived ingredients (including Lanolin, Beeswax, Carmine and more) in our products and accessories. Beyond any personal convictions, we simply believe that it’s unnecessary, especially when there are alternatives that are just as readily available, and equally effective in the formulation of our products. Further, you need not necessarily be aligned with animal rights issues to reap the benefits of a vegan cosmetic line: animal ingredients can be amongst the most allergenic and skin reactive, and prevent makeup from being considered Kosher, Halal or otherwise compliant with various dietary (and sanitary!) regulations.

So great, right? Love it. But besides being vegan, OCC is highly celebrated in the makeup world! My makeup fanatic sister was hella impressed when I told her OCC was sending me free stuff. She said people particularly rave about their lip tar. Here are the shades I tried:

My favorite are the Kava-Kava and the Queen, but I think I am square when it comes to lipstick so those are the most traditional colors I’d say. Well the Kava-Kava is kind of 60s pale, which is right up my 60s-enthusiast alley. It would look AWESOME with some seriously heavy black eye makeup. The Queen is so bright that I did a bare eye to complement. 

The lip tars are pretty amazing. They are renown for their staying power and straight-up heavy pigment and I’d have to agree with both those points. This stuff stays on for like ever. And the colors are BOLD and pretty much lovely. It’s a bit hard to get the color off but I prefer that to having to reapply all day. This stuff literally stays on like three hours longer than regular lipstick.

For the eye colors, here are the shades I tried:

These are great! Again, the colors are bold and lovely. I like the sheer colors but the matte Poison is pretty impressive in just how strong it is. These colors go on smooth and are easy to apply and blend. Love them!

As for nail polish, I hate my funny fingers so I didn’t want to model them for you, but my co-worker Leah was kind enough to volunteer her nails:

She said she liked the colors a lot! I tried the Copperhead on its own and it was very nice. The nail polish was a bit tricky to get off as well, but it certainly didn’t chip. And I don’t really wear nail polish but I’ve been under the impression that it’s hard to find vegan polish? Well, OCC has plenty.

The final product I tried was the tinted moisturizer. I liked this as well. Very moisturizing. It’s super-sheer so if you are looking for more coverage, this may not be for you. But if you want just a bit of coverage, you’ll like this.

So if you can’t tell, I love Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics! I even went to their launch party for their new Garden collection. The Ophelia and Belladonna and many of the colors I tried are in the new collection. The party was well-attended and had Babycakes cupcakes! Don’t you love it when a vegan biz supports a vegan biz? I certainly do. It’s just another reason to love OCC!

Product Review: Lime Crime makeup!  »

Lime Crime makeup is so pretty! And all their products but the eyelid primer are vegan (the primer contains beeswax)! So nice to have a high-fashion vegan line, right? I love my earthy, crunchy brands too but I can’t help but fawn over a super stylish brand like Lime Crime. The company sent me some gratis products to try and now I will tell you all about them!

First of all: everything smells like cake! Really. OK the first product I tried was their opaque lipstick in Retrofuturist—a nice, bright red. I really like the color—not too dark, not too orange—just red! And it went on nicely. I’m not super skilled with lipstick but it was easy to apply. Then I applied the glitter lip gloss in Cherry on Top over the lipstick. Very fun! I was expecting it to be more glittery (though it is more glittery than it appears in the picture) but I suppose it’s a lot more wearable the way it is. As you can see though, it really makes the color POP! It’s like a lipstick energizer! 

Now for the eyeshadow! They sent me the “Chinadoll” palette. What do you think about the name? It seems messed up.* The palette, however, is awesome. Such pretty colors and so rich. I messed around with a few of the colors, you can see below:

Thank you for indulging my attempts at beauty blog pictures! It was hard. As you can see, I put the colors I used in each “look” (beauty talk!) next to the pic. If you need a little help figuring out how to apply the shadow and you want to do it like I did, my sister has a great tutorial video you can use.

The Jade-O-Lade is beautiful. Love it. And the black worked really well as a liner, as you can see over the red. I’m also really into red around the eyes; I used to buy red lipliner and apply it as eyeliner. Everybody was totes into it. I think it brings out my eyes! My eyes love to be brought out. 

To sum it up: Lime Crime smells like cake and is super pretty! And very easy to use. And fun and stylish. I’m a fan! Oh also, their logo is a unicorn and I think she should be the MMU’s new girlfriend. 

*I’ve been reading more about it. The campaign is seriously wrong. The palette is beautiful but they really need to apologize and change the name. Lime Crime’s founder has made a statement about the controversy, you can read it and decide for yourself what you think about the matter.