Did you know that only about 30 ingredients are eliminated from our beauty products? 30! In the UK they ban over 1,300 harmful ingredients. Our beauty industry seems unregulated, and most of us aren’t even aware. Thankfully, Beautycounter is a safer beauty company that uses a Never List- a list of over 1,500 ingredients that they vow never to use in their products. Here are a few:
Category: Beautycounter
Night Time Skincare Routine
I think I’ve finally found what works for my skin! 
I can hear the Hallelujah chorus.
In all seriousness, it’s taken me a very long time to figure things out in the skincare department. I have extremely oily skin. So oily that I can do my makeup at 6:30 in the morning and by the time I get to school at 7:30, I’m already in need of blotting papers or powder. I’ve dealt with this from adolescence to now along with the occasional breakout. I had terrible acne as a teenager, but luckily, my parents recognized it and got me to a dermatologist ASAP. She said I’d grow out of it in my 20s. That was mostly true other than monthly hormonal breakouts. But it’s still oily and I have large pores that often result in blackheads. Continue reading “Night Time Skincare Routine”
Beautycounter: Winter Must-Haves
BEAUTYCOUNTER: WINTER MUST-HAVES
This cold weather in wreaking havoc on my skin. I’m itchy all the time. And because it’s so cold I take really hot showers which only perpetuates the vicious cycle. I know we’re all guilty of this, and we head straight for the lotion afterwards to help combat the dryness.
Luckily, I’ve discovered some of the best products from Beautycounter that work wonders on dry skin.
Hydrating Body Lotion 
This is seriously the best lotion I’ve ever used. I have used countless lotion, as I’m sure you have, but I’ve never used a lotion that actually absorbs completely into your skin the way this one does. You know when you put skinny jeans on after you’ve put lotion on your legs and they just won’t slide over your skin because the lotion makes them stick to you? And then you’re so uncomfortable in the jeans all day? Yeah, this doesn’t happen with this lotion! Trust me. I’ve tested it!
The Citrus Mimosa scent is so fresh and bright yet subtle and understated. I really enjoy it. This is the scent of most Beautycounter body products. I love that I can go from the body wash (one of my faves) to the lotion and not have separate scents competing with one another.
The price tag is $24, and I can’t stress enough that a little bit goes a long way with our products. It is a fantastic product that will last you much longer than you thought and keep your legs (and entire body) moisturized and happy in and out of your skinny jeans. 🙂
Body Butter
Two words: Game Changer
I have been using this on my hands pretty regularly and before it got cold, I was using it on my dry heels. Sandal season can be awful on our poor feet, but when I used a thicker layer of the body butter on my feet and put them directly into socks, they were noticeably better after two nights of that. I did this routine right before getting into bed. Seriously, two nights!
But now that it’s cold, I’m using it on my upper body. My shoulders, the backs of my arms, and my upper back are all very dry during the winter, and this brutal one is no exception. I get very itchy from the dryness in these particular areas, and I’ve found that the Body Butter works a little better for me there than the lotion does.
The Body Butter is also quick-absorbing and has the lovely Citrus Mimosa scent. The price is $39, and again, a little goes a long way. This is a top-notch product at Beautycounter, and though it may seem a little indulgent to spend $39 on a body butter, it will make your winter skin feel smooth and hydrated throughout the entire year. You won’t be sorry you made this purchase.
A Few More
This lip conditioner with a cooling, peppermint scent will help keep your dry lips hydrated and feeling great throughout winter. It goes in my purse with me everywhere. $20.
This body oil is a step up in the hydration game. I can really tell a difference when I use this on the extra dry spots where I typically use the body butter. It’s not overly oily and doesn’t leave you feeling greasy. It actually absorbs pretty quickly into my skin and smells yummy. I love the smell of rosemary, so I’m a little biased. At $73 it’s the most expensive moisturizer of my must-haves, but it’s truly delightful and most importantly, IT WORKS!
Safer Beauty
So yes, all of these things are great and wonderful in hydrating your dry, winter skin, but these products are taken a step further with their safe ingredients. It’s amazing how well they absorb into my skin and how well they do their job. But the most amazing thing is that I feel good that a super absorbing, hydrating, moisturizing line of products is actually safe for me to use. I don’t have to worry that what’s going into the biggest organ of my body (my skin) is going to cause long-term harm from toxic ingredients that are in them. Because they aren’t there. Thanks to our Never List, these products are always safe for us to use.
If you’ve never heard of Beautycounter, I’d love for you to read this. And then you can find out why I decided to join this great company. And if you’re ever in the mood for more info, you can join my Facebook group. You can also visit my Beautycounter website and shop, research products, learn about the company, and even learn how to sign up as a consultant with me.
Want to Try My Winter Must-Haves?
If you’re interested in trying any of these products let me know. I know some people that can help you out if you’re in Louisiana, And if you’re here, I’ve got all of these products that I’d love for you to try out for yourself. Let’s make 2018 a year of Safer Beauty.
I hope y’all have a Happy Friday and a great weekend!
XO,
Elizabeth
Product Review: Color Intense Lip Set from Beautycounter
PRODUCT REVIEW: COLOR INTENSE LIP SET FROM BEAUTYCOUNTER
I’ve said this before about this product: I love them so much. I really do.
I know I’m a little biased because I do work for this company, but I believe in their mission and their products. And when I heard that we ingest the products that are on our lips, I thought lip products would be a great place to make a switch to safer beauty. And for someone like me who loves lipstick and loves wearing a different color everyday, you know, to coordinate with my outfit, I knew this set was going to be perfect.
They arrived in the mail on a Tuesday. I told Paul I needed these, and seeing as how I’d just placed a pretty large order to Beautycounter, he was less than thrilled when I told him about the lipsticks. (Husbands…)He conceded and told me I could have them for Christmas. I could share with clients, but I couldn’t wear them because they were supposed to be wrapped and put under the tree. Well…had that actually happened, I couldn’t write this post for you. So, it’s technically still a Christmas present, but I’ve been wearing them everyday since they came that Tuesday.
Pigmentation and Longevity
Beautycounter has found a fabulous way to make these lipsticks super pigmented and safe for you. Praise be! I have to blot sometimes because the color is too intense if I’m heavy handed that day. However, that’s why it’s name is the Color Intense Lip Set. Aren’t they beautiful?
As for how long they last? I put my lipstick on just before I walk out the door which is sometime between 7:00 and 7:30. I usually eat a snack and drink from my water bottle from that time until lunch at 12:30. Now, I’m a messy eater. I’m the girl that needs two or three napkins per meal, and when we sit down at a restaurant, Paul immediately asks for more napkins because he knows I’ll need them. So, I eat lunch and really use my napkins. 🙂 At that point, most of my lipstick is gone. My messiness notwithstanding, I’d say that the lipstick is long-wearing. We’ve all worn lipsticks that wear off quickly, and these simply aren’t one of them. Thank you, Beautycounter!
Let’s Try Them On
The set consists of five gorgeous, flattering colors: Girls’ Night (classic red), Little Black Dress (rich berry), Brunch (tawny nude), First Date (rosy pink), and 9 to 5 (luminous mauve). Aren’t those names fun? Get ready for a whole lot of me. 
If you can get past so many of my faces, you can really tell the difference in the colors. There’s no filter on these pictures to show you a true look at their color. These were taken on a cloudy morning.
Why is Beautycounter Lipstick Safer?
“Our lipsticks get their moisturizing touch from plant-based ingredients such as jojoba esters and their light minty scent from peppermint oil—not from synthetic flavors, fragrances, or chemicals that may have harmful health effects.”- Beautycounter Website
This right here is why I love these products so much. There are already so many factors that play into the harm of our health. Why let your makeup and skincare be one more thing? Beautycounter has a very transparent ingredient list for all of their products. And one of the best things about this company is their Never List. I like knowing that these chemicals and ingredients will never be in my skin care and makeup. Make the switch today!
Links
If you’d like your own Color Intense Lip Set or any of the Beautycounter products, I’ll leave a few helpful links below.
Hurry before they’re gone! And please let me know if I can help you. I’d be delighted to help you make the switch to safer beauty.
XO,
Elizabeth
Holiday Gift Guide 2017: Beauty Lover
Happy Holidays! Well, almost…Thanksgiving is just around the corner and Christmas too, so I feel like it’s ok if I say that.
Today I’m sharing with you some incredible gift ideas for the beauty lover in your life.
Because I’ve joined the mission to get safer products into the hands of everyone,the products in my beauty guide are going to come from Beautycounter. And why not give those that you love something that they can feel good about putting on their bodies. Right now Beautycounter has a great Holiday Collection. I’ve mentioned before how easy it is to break these up and give as gifts to different people. Or, hey, maybe you need a gift for yourself. It is holiday party season after all, and who doesn’t need high-performing, long-wearing beauty products to get us through?
I will say that some of these gift sets have sold out, but have no fear! Almost all of them are coming back!! HOORAY! (That’s all listed under each picture on the Beautycounter website.)
I am here to tell you, I wish I had all of them. That Ultimate Nudes Palette is at the top of my list!
And I’ve really been loving liquid eyeliner lately, so I’ve got my eye on the Nude Eye Trio…let’s be honest, I want the Smokey Eye Trio too, but the nude one would get more use. And if we’re being REALLY honest, I want everything.
I’m a makeup girl. I always have been. Blue eyeshadow up to my eyebrows, pink blush, and red lipstick. That was my go-to look when I played in makeup as a kid. I wanted to be like Dolly.
Heck, I still want to be like Dolly. But now it’s more of the look Dolly has here that I’d like to imitate. 🙂 
Gorgeous.
Moving on…
Any of these would make great gifts! And again, breaking them up would be so easy. Just a little something for a friend or coworker, babysitter or teacher, mom or mother-in-law, the list can go on. Unfortunately we aren’t able to restock the Holiday Hand Cream Trio. And trust me, you aren’t the only one upset about that. It was favored by everyone.
The Glow & Go Mini Oils is a shop one, share one special. With any purchase of the Glow & Go Mini Oils set Beautycounter will gift a set to a patient at UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC)—a trailblazing destination for research, education, and patient care. What a great thing you’re doing! And not only would this make a great gift for yourself 🙂 but you could also break these up as an indulgent gift for your closest girlfriends without breaking the bank!
There are, of course, so many other options at the Beautycounter website if you don’t see something you like here. You can purchase single lip sheers and lip glosses (which I love), and eye shadow duos and all in a great selection of colors for everyone.
That is the mission after all!
*And here’s some insider info- well just a teaser really- stay tuned for some exciting things to come! You won’t want to miss out!*
If you’re new to the whole Beautycounter thing, please read why I joined this company here.
Then head over to my website and peruse the products. And please contact me if you have any questions. I’d love to help you find a way to get safer products into your hands for you and your family.
Happy Shopping, y’all!
XO,
Elizabeth
Leaving my Beauty Mark
Hello my friends. It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged. I guess I’ve been in a creativity rut. Also, work is keeping me pretty busy, so projects have been put on the backburner. I don’t remember there being this much paperwork in Louisiana public schools. Maybe it was because I didn’t really have papers to grade. Who knows? However, school work is taking up a lot of my time, so weekday projects are pretty much non-existent, and when the weekends roll around, we have plans a lot of the time. These sound a lot like excuses, but the truth is, this blog is one of my favorite things I do because it’s just for me. I love this outlet to share things that I love (whether anyone reads it or not), and it just makes me feel good to write. So when I have to put it to the side, I miss it terribly.
So, yes, I blog for me. And I’m so happy that you come back time and time again to read it. But I’ve recently come across something that I’m not only doing for me; I’m doing it for you as well.
Enter Beautycounter
I learned about this company from a random Facebook message from my Beautycounter mentor, Kelly. She reached out to me, probably expecting a negative result since I didn’t live near her anymore. But for whatever reason, I took interest. I started looking into the company and learned that these products are made with safer ingredients than what I’ve been using on my skin for about 31 years. I knew pretty instantly after exploring the Beautycounter website that I wanted to try something. I decided to go with the Charcoal Bar and the Charcoal Mask. I loved them and haven’t looked back yet.
Why Beautycounter?
I’m not one to do something drastic without doing my research, so… I did my research and a lot of it. I started following Beautycounter and its founder, Gregg Renfrew, on social media. I read the tab on the Beautycounter website called Our Story. It’s chock full of information about how Beautycounter got started and why they’re doing what they’re doing. I looked up videos on talks that Gregg did, found some reviews on the products on Youtube. There was surprisingly a wealth of info out there about this relatively new company.
S0, why Beautycounter? I am 31 years old. I have some healthy habits in my life, but I also have plenty of unhealthy ones to counteract them. As I’ve become a 30-something I’ve really started to learn who I am and what I want out of my life. And with that reckoning came a desire for change. It’s a process, as anything is, but I am working on myself to develop a more healthy lifestyle. I know I need to exercise more, eat more veggies, use safer cleaning products, and get my yearly checkups so that I am keeping track of my overall health. Well, Beautycounter seemed like a great addition to a healthier lifestyle. Look, I’m a girly girl. I love makeup and beauty products. And, y’all, this is a fun lifestyle change! I actually feel good about the things that I put on my body every day, and I look forward to acquiring even more safer skincare and beauty products.
Safer Beauty
One of the reasons Beautycounter is so safe is because of The Never List. The Never List is a list of ingredients that are often used in beauty and personal care products but are never used in products at Beautycounter. Follow the link above to see the list.
In the United States, we only have roughly 30 restricted or banned cosmetic ingredients. If we look to our friends in the European Union we will find over 1,400 banned ingredients. The last time congress did any major regulating to the cosmetics industry was in 1938. Almost 80 years ago guys. 80.
This is one of my favorite things about Beautycounter, they are trying to change this. They are in D.C. actually lobbying to get congress to pay attention and make these changes. I am not a mother yet, but I want to be. And I want my future children to have safe personal care products to use. Sure, I want them for myself too, but to know that if I have a daughter, she could have all safe skin care and makeup is a big why for me.
So, I joined the mission to get safer products into the hands of everyone. Mine and yours. I’m still learning about all of the products, but I’m loving every minute of it. I’d love to share with you in person about this amazing company and the potentially life-saving mission of this company. Cancer caused by environmental elements is a real thing. I believe they are trying to make things safer for us so that our risk of cancer due to some of our lifestyle choices is at a lesser risk than it is now. I believe in these products and in the mission of this company.
Like I said, I’d love to tell you more. There’s all sorts of ways we can do that. I can have you over to play in some of the products. I can host you and few of your friends at my house. You can host friends at your house and I’ll bring all of my goodies for you to try. You can learn more about this stand-out company and how you, too, can switch to safer beauty.
Okay, here are a few of my favorite products. Like I said before, I started with the charcoal bar.
My Favorite Products
My skin is very oily and acne-prone, and I have big pores, so anything with charcoal has always been recommended to me. I couldn’t get just one thing so I decided to try the Charcoal Mask as well.
I ordered these two products way back in March and I’m still using the same tube of the mask and am just now finishing up my second charcoal bar. These products last so long because a little goes a long way.
I ended up diving into the cosmetics side of the brand with the Tint Skin Foundation. It is extremely high-performing and long-wearing.
This makeup is very comparable to a high end brand of makeup that I was wearing before. It was honestly a no-brainer for me to repurchase this makeup after I fell in love with it and knew that it was so much safer.
Here’s a few more products that I love and use daily.
This concealer is everything. It hides all imperfections and is in this wonderful pen, which I didn’t like at first, but now I think it’s genius! 
This sunscreen is a face stick. I have such fair skin, and though I knew I needed sunscreen on my face everyday, I hated how thick and goopy it made my skin feel. And then I had to put makeup on top of it. I just wasn’t feeling it. This is amazing. I know I’m getting great sun protection, and I’m not getting the sticky feeling I normally get from other sunscreens I’ve used. Bonus- it smells a little like Tootsie Rolls. 🙂 Double bonus- It’s a safe sunscreen!
This is the volumizing mascara. I honestly wasn’t so sure about this because I had found my holy grail mascara a long time ago. And anytime I strayed from it to try the next best thing, I always came crawling back. But then I tried Beautycounter. And I literally threw the other stuff away. This performed better than the other mascara and it’s safer for me.
Last, and not really last but last on this list, is the Lip Conditioner Peppermint Balm. It’s cooling, hydrating, and feels great. Also, you know, with lip products, we are constantly licking our lips, drinking our coffee and eating and transferring our lipstick all in the process. Turns out, we actually consume our lip products. Yes, like eat them. Of course we’re unaware that we’re doing this, but we are, and a lot of the ingredients in our lipsticks are toxic. So, I feel better knowing that my lip products that I wear from Beautycounter are safer for me to actually wear and sometimes consume. I sure hope you’ve stuck around until now. Please feel free to message me, leave a comment here on this post, join my Facebook group, and visit my website to learn even more and to shop with me. You can also check out the right sidebar right here on my blog. It’s a page labeled Safer Beauty, and you’ll always find a direct link to my website there without having to search for this post.
I can’t wait to introduce you to these truly wonderful products that you’re sure to love.
XO,
Elizabeth