What better way to show the beauty lover in your life that you care than a new stash of organic makeup. Unlike conventional makeup products, true organic makeup contains nothing but all-natural plants, oils, and minerals that are packed with vitamins and antioxidants to nourish the skin. The market for organic products has exploded and with it so has the number of brands claiming to be “organic.” So, how can you tell if a product is really organic? Before you buy that makeup gift this season, check out these tips to ensure that you’re buying truly organic makeup.
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Buy Products, Not Brands
Just because a brand markets itself as “organic,” doesn’t mean that all of their products are high quality. Oftentimes, an “organic” makeup brand may produce a few products that contain little or no organic ingredients. Even worse, they may even slip in a few questionable preservatives and other chemicals. That’s why, if you want to buy real organic makeup, you should review the ingredient label of each product that you are interested in and make sure that it is actually made with natural, organic, and non-toxic ingredients.
Here’s a tip: ingredients on product labels are ordered from greatest to least quantity. If a product does contain non-organic ingredients, make sure that they are at the bottom of the list of ingredients.
Look for Safe Minerals & Organic Ingredients
It goes without saying that an organic makeup product should actually contain organic ingredients. Look for products with organic carrier oils (like coconut, sunflower, pomegranate, acai, marula, and castor oils), essential oils, and other beneficial ingredients. These ingredients will nourish the skin without causing irritation or clogging pores.
In addition to organic ingredients, there are also other common ingredients found in all-natural makeup that aren’t necessarily organic—namely minerals. Natural minerals are harvested from the earth and, thus, cannot technically be called organic. However, natural minerals are safe and make fantastic additions to organic makeup. Common minerals found in high-quality organic makeup include titanium dioxide, iron oxides, mica, silica, zinc oxide, and ultramarines. These minerals add shimmer, pigment, sun protection, and light play to everything from lipsticks to foundations.
Avoid These Chemicals
So, now that you know which ingredients to buy, let’s talk about the ingredients that you’ll want to avoid. There is an infinite amount of beneficial organic makeup ingredients; likewise, there is also an infinite amount of cheap, potentially toxic, and irritating ingredients. The worst offenders are ingredients like parabens, coal tars, aluminum, talc, propylene glycol, polyethylene, boron nitride, bismuth oxychloride, steareths, triclosan, mineral oils & other petroleum-based ingredients. These ingredients are inexpensive preservatives & fillers which have been linked to issues from mild irritation to hormonal disruption and cancer[1]. Avoid any so-called “organic” makeup product which includes ingredients like these.
Expensive Doesn’t Mean Better
In the earlier days of organic makeup, it was difficult for manufacturers to find high quality and low-cost organic ingredients for their products. Today, however, there are tons of great organic ingredient suppliers for brands to choose from.
All of this simply means that price doesn’t necessarily equate to quality. There are tons of affordable organic makeup brands who make effective products. Brands like 100% Pure, Juice Beauty, RMS Beauty, and Au Naturale are just a few that you should check out.
Give Samples + Gift Cards
Buying makeup as a gift can be tricky. You have to know which shades will look best on their skin tone otherwise you’ll end up giving a gift that has to be returned or exchanged. One trick to avoiding this is to give samples of the products you’d like to gift along with a gift card. Samples are less expensive than full-sized products, they allow your recipient a chance to try out a few products, and there is no need to return them if they don’t work. The gift card lets your loved one buy the full-sized versions of the samples that they loved. A win-win!
Luckily, most organic makeup brands offer samples and sample sets—especially during the holidays.
Look for Gift Sets
The holidays are great times to find amazing deals on packages and gift sets. You don’t need me to tell you that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are some of the best days to shop for holiday gifts. What you may not know is that many organic makeup brands also have deals on gift sets on these days. Gift sets are also a good way to give a variety of matching makeup products without having to do the picking yourself.
