Clean Beauty: Makeup Edition

Posted on December 14, 2022

Something happened in the middle of COVID: I started to break out in lots and lots of little red spots near my nasolabial folds. Call me narcissistic, but it really upset me. And then I felt awful for being upset about some adult spots when we were in the midst of the pandemic. As someone who never had spots as a teen (cry me a river, right? I’m clearly not endearing myself to my readers in this post), it was starting to affect my self-confidence.

I figured they were the much talked about maskne – as a teacher I was wearing a mask for the vast majority of the day whilst teaching lessons, constantly talking, for huge swathes of time. But then over the summer it did not clear up. I had doubled down on my skincare routine – masks, acids galore. And nothing. It was at that time that I started to become suspicious.

Early this autumn, I finally found out that I had a case of perioral dermatitis. It is a skin condition that mostly affects 30-year-old women. Brilliant. After a course of antibiotics cleared the worst of it up, I was hellbent on trying to prevent a flare-up from occurring. (Perioral dermatitis can become chronic and come and go throughout your lifetime.) One of the ways to try to mitigate this is to avoid it’s triggers. Which include any product with SLS, fluoride, parabens, paraffins, etc.

I have long ago cut out SLS from all my hair and body products but it was time for me to re-evaluate my skincare and makeup products. I already bought vegan, eco-friendly (green) products which I then had to narrow down to the cleanest ones possible.

This post is about my favourite green, clean makeup products but I’ll write about my new skincare routine at a later date.

***Not a single one of these products has been gifted for review.***

All about the eyes:

I love the rituel de fille soot pots for eyeshadow. They can be difficult to apply at first, but once you get the hang of it, the colours really pack a punch. Ere perez eyeliner in earth is my new go-to, but I like most of the ere perez cosmetics line. The PHB mascara is the best clean mascara that I have tried so far.

For brows, I use the WBCco soap brows product in clear for everyday definition, and if I want to darken them slightly for definition I use the madara brow promade.

Lips:

I love the ilia beauty lipsticks. Inika makes some great colours and I have a neutral Lily Lolo for everyday use. I also have a Kosas lipstick in darkroom which fills in for some of my beloved Mac burgundy lipsticks.

Face:

I am currently using staple clean brand rms in the unconcelear. I haven’t tried their powder, but it’s on my to buy list. I’m loving the ilia beauty multistick as a blusher (I have one in ‘tenderly’) and the madara cosmic drops as a highlighter.

I still need to find a foundation to use, but I wear foundation about 5 times a year so I am in no hurry. I also still want to trace the Westman atelier tracestick for some light contour.

A bonus recommendation is using Manucurist nail varnish. It’s made in France, they have a huge variety of colours and free-from the worst nasties that are in most nail varnishes (like formaldehyde).