Makeup Products I've Used Up So Far This Year and Why I Won't Be Repurchasing Them in the Future; Excepting the Products I Will Repurchase For the Reasons Enumerated In the Following Passage
Makeup is everywhere. Beauty products are pushed on men and women at young ages.
Chapstick makes your lips better, buy it! This shower gel will get the ladies to like you, buy it! This foundation will cover up those nasty pimples, buy it (I have another problem with this, to be discussed later). Use whitening toothpaste to make people like your shiny smile, buy it now!
But how many people know that those products are not only probably bad for you, but are tested on animals in large laboratories all over the world?
Using cruelty free beauty products helps save the lives of thousands of animals every year. Here is my previous post on why cruelty free beauty is important. My ultimate goal is to buy only cruelty free vegan products. These can be very hard to find in our global world where companies are forced to test their products on animals if they want to sell them in China which is a very large and new market. However, I have many beauty products that are not cruelty free and I can't just throw them away (I have a hard time not using everything until there are no more uses for it anymore. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!). Therefore, I am trying to use them up before I buy new vegan cruelty free products. Some of the products you will see reviewed below are not cruelty free or vegan, but I am reviewing them here so you can see my honest thoughts on the products and why I won't be buying them in the future.
These are the products I have used up so far this year:
1. Curious by Britney Spears 1.7 Fl oz
Curious is a fragrance product from Elizabeth Arden Inc (which tests on animals "where required by law" aka on products they wish to sell in China). This is actually one of my favorite scents and I'm sad that it isn't cruelty free or vegan. I bought this over a year ago, and I'm sad I finished it so quickly because it is one of my everyday scents. It has a great light floral scent that is also crisp an not too heady like some floral fragrances can be.
2. The Body Shop Japanese Cherry Blossom Eau de Toilette 1.69 Fl oz **
Not one of my favorite scents, but a good everyday fragrance, this Eau de Toilette lasted me over a year. The Body Shop is a cruelty free company, but their parent company (L'Oreal) does test on animals, so I will not be repurchasing this product in the future.
3. Organix Moroccan Argan Crème Conditioner *
This conditioner is one of my least favorite conditioners ever. I have tried a bunch of conditioners, so I would know. (I use three times as much conditioner as shampoo because my hair is long and I use it on my hair from my nape to the ends. I don't use it on my scalp at all. I also only use shampoo on the hair that is closest to my scalp and let it run through the rest of my hair as I rinse it out.) I sent my mom to the store to get me the Moroccan argan oil conditioner and she came back with the argan crème. It smells SO BAD. The scent lingers in your hair forever. It makes me feel like I have frankincense stuck in my hair, it is that strong. I believe most, if not all of their products contain silk amino acids, so they are not vegan, but the company does not test on animals or pay other companies to test their ingredients or products on animals. For more information view their FAQ page. I will not be repurchasing this conditioner because it is not vegan and it smells horrible!
4. CVS Epsom salt green tea and chamomile 1 lb
No information could be found about what fragrance was used in this mixture, so I can't say if it is vegan or not and the CVS website is a horror to wade through. If you feel like wading through it yourself, here it is, but I'm just going to not buy this Epsom salt again on the fact that the smell is really strange. Just get the normal, unscented, boring salt and you will do just fine.
5. Biotrue Contact Solution
Bio True contact solution is made my Bausch and Lomb which tests on animals. This is one of those products that I sort of have to use because I haven't yet found a vegan contact solution. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
6. L'Oreal Visible Lift Line Minimizing Makeup Soft Ivory 102
This foundation actually matched my skin tone, but clogged my pores horribly. I would start breaking out after about six hours of wearing this foundation. I finally just pitched it. L'Oreal is one of the largest cosmetic companies out there that condones and practices animal testing. It owns The Body Shop (which itself is cruelty free) so parts of it claim to be "cruelty free" but the money you are spending on those product is being funneled into the larger company, therefore supporting animal testing. I wouldn't purchase this product again, even if it was vegan.
7. Bath and Body Works Moonlight Path Volumizing Shampoo 12 Fl oz **
This is another one of those companies that is cruelty free, but their parent company is not. I think I received this shampoo from my friend Donna when she was moving back to Dublin and she didn't need it anymore. I don't normally try to buy volumizing shampoos because they make my hair knot, but this one worked well. The scent is a very winter scent to me, and I'm not sure I would buy it again for the scent. Use your own judgment when purchasing this brand.
8. Neutrogena Naturals Purifying Pore Scrub 4 fl oz
Neutrogena is owned by Johnson & Johnson (you know, "a family company") which tests their products on animals. This scrub was not only not cruelty free, it did a really bad job at being a pore scrub. The scent was accompanied by an astringent-like burn and was not fun to put on the face. I will never, ever repurchase this product.
9. elf Mineral Eyeshadow Primer: Sheer* v
eyes lips face cosmetics is a cruelty free company that is also mostly vegan (some of the brushes are made with real animal hair). The mineral primer is one of my favorite products. It keep eyeshadow on my eyelids almost all day and allows for smooth blending. This formula is smoother and less oily than the eyelid primer from the $1 essentials line. I highly recommend this $3 product. The doe foot applicator can sometime be a little hard to control with product quantity, so I usually dab some on my eyelid, then rub it in with my ring finger.
10. elf Eyelid Primer: Sheer* v
This $1 product is one of the best, if not the best bang for the buck product on the market. It keeps eyeshadow in place all day. It cost $1. It is vegan and cruelty free. It lasts for months of daily use. If you lose it, you only lost a dollar. I have used 3 of these now and I plan to keep using them for a long time.
11. John Frieda Sheer Blonde Highlight Activating Enhancing Conditioner 8.45 fl oz
This was my go to shampoo and conditioner brand for several years (along with Pantene) and I used to go through 2 or so bottles of this conditioner a month. Nowhere on their website can I find any information about their animal testing policy. This is suspicious in my mind and I will be assuming they are not cruelty free. I will no longer be repurchasing this product.
12. Dove Refresh and Care Invigorating Dry Shampoo
I will not be repurchasing this product for several reasons. This was a pretty bad dry shampoo. It didn't really make my hair look clean unless I doused my head with it, which I feel is a waste of product. It smells like some sort of chemical floral fragrance of death. Absolutely disgusting. And it lingers and lingers in your hair, in your bathroom, and on your clothes. Ugh! So bad! It also comes in an aerosol can and I don't like those because I am always afraid they will blow up in my face (along with the fact that they are bad for the environment). Also, it is not animal friendly in anyway. I will NEVER EVER buy this again. Like Taylor Swift said, "we are never ever, ever getting back together".
* denotes cruelty free
** cruelty free, but parent company is not
v vegan product
Bold products I will repurchase
No comments:
Post a Comment