Product Review: One Love Organics Brand New Day Microderma Scrub & Masque

I received this adorable little sample from the fab folks at the W3LL People Studio in Austin, TX. If you're ever in the neighborhood, I highly recommend you drop by! Not only do they carry the full line of W3LL People makeup, they'll also gladly give you a free mini-makeover ala your typical Sephora, Ulta, or the mall beauty counter. They also offer a wide variety of only the cleanest products for skin care, body care, and a glamorous green lifestyle. I do most of my clean beauty shopping here and I adore the place, as well as everyone who works there. Make sure to get a hug from Christine!

But enough about W3LL People, let's talk about One Love Organics. I'm sure that by now, you're aware of my borderline-inappropriate love affair with their Vitamin B Cleansing Oil. I've been lusting after this brand for a while, and I'm glad that I'm getting the opportunity to try out a few of their products. While their products certainly aren't cheap, the ingredients are pure and high quality, and the price is more mid-range than comparable luxury brands, which I definitely appreciate.

Brand New Day Microderma Scrub & Masque is the epitome of "gentle yet powerful." This phrase -- or similar incarnations -- is thrown around a lot in the green beauty world, but this scrub really takes the cake for me. The main ingredients are simple: corn starch, sweet pea flour, and pineapple extract, providing both manual and enzyme-based exfoliation. This scrub comes in a powder form that is deceptively smooth and silky. But add some water and bam! That same powder becomes a powerhouse of exfoliation. Sensitive- and dry-skinned beauties might take caution, according to reviews, this can be a little too much for your complexion. For oily and blemish-prone skin like mine, though, it works wonders!

Product Review + SWATCHES!: Star Crushed Minerals Eye Shadows

I'm a bad beauty blogger. Bad! You know why? Because I've been hanging on to these shadows for over six months and I still haven't reviewed them!

I guess it's a testament to their longevity that they're still as vibrant, shimmery, and beautiful as the day I got them in the mail.

It's easy to have a bit of sticker shock when transitioning to clean beauty products, especially makeup. There's a lot of really cheap, effective, yet toxic makeup out there in drug stores and groceries. When looking at luxury brands like Kjaer Weis, ILIA, RMS Beauty, and W3LL People, it's easy to find yourself deciding between some eyeshadow and the electric bill. Luckily, a plethora of unique boutiques have popped up online offering more affordable, yet still clean, options for makeup. A number of these independent brands can be found on Etsy, which is where I encountered Star Crushed Minerals.

Product Review: Stark Skincare Cypress Purity + Defense Oil + thoughts on the brand

 FreshFaced samples. Are you excited? I'm excited. Well, a bit melancholy as well, to see all of these little bits of loveliness go away. It does make room for more samples in the future, though. Anyway, on to the review!
All right guys, we're in the home stretch on my

Stark Skincare's Cypress Purity + Defense Oil is a product I've had my eye on for some time, and I have to say that it did not disappoint! This facial oil is light as a feather but supremely nourishing, containing rice bran oil, apricot kernel oil, sweet almond oil, camellia seed oil, and argan oil, plus some extra oomph with the addition of vitamin E, cypress oil, bergamot oil, and some super-secret essential oils (they're not listed, but I trust Stark to keep me safe from nasties).

Sneak Peek at La Bella Figura's new product!

Look guys! I took a shoddy screenshot of an upcoming new lip color from La Bella Figura's Instagram! It's like I don't actually know how to use technology or something...

We don't know much about what kind of magic La Bella Figura Beauty is whipping up there in the great white north, but they did have this to say to me when I asked about the new product:

"We can tell you it's free of soy, gluten, carmine, talc, coconut, parabens, toxic stuff and is vegan. It's definitely luxurious with active ingredients that are plant based and feel luscious."

Can you tell I'm excited?? Because I'm really excited. I mean, look at that color. It's really like nothing I own or have really seen from the non-toxic beauty world. It's a sophisticated dark red lip that I could actually see myself wearing!

I'm watching you, Bella. I got my eye on you.

Product Review: May Lindstrom Skin The Clean Dirt + thoughts on the brand

All right kids, we're coming up on my last couple of FreshFaced sample reviews. It's like some kind of bittersweet victory. This was one of the last products I tried, and for good reason. I'd heard lots of incredibly glowing reviews about this product and I was eager to try something unique.

Product Review: Sweet Anthem Perfume - Annabelle Perfume Oil

Sweet Anthem Perfumes

 While spring hasn't necessarily sprung, it is definitely afoot, and -- I think -- at the forefront of everyone's minds. This has been a wet, cold, nebulous sort of winter for us folks down here in Texas, and it's important to keep your spirits up as those hazy, damp, if slightly warmer, days continue. One way to do that is with scent, and I think that my girls over at Sweet Anthem Perfumes have some decidedly spring-like scents in their repertoire.

As you can probably tell from my previous reviews of Sweet Anthem products, I prefer sweeter, more floral scents, and the next perfume I'd like to share with you is in that same vein. The story of Annabelle Perfume Oil from Sweet Anthem's website speaks of sweltering jasmine and salty sea air, which is just what this delightful oil reminds me of. I've always loved jasmine, as my grandmother and mother both grew heaps of the flowering bush everywhere.

Product Review: Elizabeth Dehn for One Love Organics Vitamin B Active Moisture Cleansing Oil & Makeup Remover

First things first: that name is a mouthful! Second:

Oh.
My.
Gawd. 

 
Guys, seriously, have you tried this stuff? It is literally flawless. I mean, I hate to say it, but pack up your stuff everybody. One Love Organics has won. I really cannot imagine a more fabulous makeup remover. But I'm going to try and keep my cool here, rather than just gush like a Tiger Beat tween over that androgynously adorable new boy band.

The Battle of the BB Creams: Juice Beauty vs. Marie Veronique

Like many green beauty bloggers, Juice Beauty Stem Cellular CC Cream is a vital part of my makeup routine. I was turned on to this product after I read about it on one of my favorite blogs, No More Dirty Looks. I'll let you in on a little secret -- on an average day, I wear only this CC cream, some mascara, and a bit of tinted lip balm. I'm lazy like that.

But everyone finds their eyes wandering... right? Well, at least to another BB cream. Specifically, Marie Veronique Organics Everyday Coverage. Both No More Dirty Looks and kimberlyloc have given glowing reviews of this product and I couldn't help being curious.  Given the similar natures of these two products, I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to compare the two!

The Mask-ed Crusader aka Sadie Reviews All the Masks!

Today we're having a Very Special Episode on the blog! That's right, three product reviews for the price of one! Just three low monthly payments of zero dollars!

Anyway, in my recent FreshFaced haul, I received three separate masks, all of which are specifically targeted towards drawing out impurities, especially blackheads (my biggest problem) and blemishes (which I also occasionally get). However, beyond their end goals, the masks I got are all very different.

So, without further ado, here are the three masks I'm reviewing: Kahina Giving Beauty's Antioxidant Mask, Stark Skincare's Green Tea Detox Clay Mask, and May Lindstrom Skin's The Problem Solver!