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Archive for the ‘Make Up’ Category

It’s no secret that we love Alima Pure’s Makeup.   Not only is it great a mineral makeup, but they have  A LOT of shades to choose from, which makes me happy.  I tend to stick with the browns, but you know, sometimes, I like something a little more snazzy, and a lot of other mineral eyeshadow falls short of the mark.  The best thing about Alima Pure is that they’ll send you samples for a fraction of the price.  A sample of mineral foundation might only last you one or two uses, but the same size sample of their eye shadow will last you much much longer.  I must have 20 sample colors that I’ve had for a while, just because I rotate them and a little goes a long way.   I put a little bit of my favorite moisturizer on my lids to help the color last longer, since it is a loose powder and it lasts me all day.

Another great thing is that they’ve always got the latest hot colors with their seasonal collections.   I was excited to get their new Stargazing collection, as it has all lovely neutral colors that go great with this summer’s styles.

Get it: You can order the gift collection directly from Alimapure.com.  $2 from every sale will go towards the Global Fund for Women

Win it: We have one sample sized set of the Stargazing collection to give away.

To Enter:

Simply leave a comment with your favorite Alima product.   Winner will be drawn at random.  Contest ends on July 22th at 11:59PM.

To Get Extra Entries:

1. Put our Lovely SafeMama™ button (sidebar sidebar!) on your blog or website and leave a comment letting us know where it is!
2. Twitter this giveaway and get another entry (leave a comment so your entry gets counted!)

Hello, your friendly neighborhood lip balm addict here. I’ve come to a very important conclusion lately about lip balms and I need to share it with you. Lately, I’ve been lamenting about how many of my natural lip balms start out great, and then turn into lumpy bumpy sticks that aren’t that pleasing to apply. (And I type lip BLAM every single time…why can’t I get it right?). I always thought that maybe it got too hot in my bag and the ingredients were revolting against each other or something but I think I figured out the real reason. Shea Butter? Every lip balm I have that contains shea butter seems to eventually turn into a bumpy lip balm. I don’t know if it ’s the formulation or the ingredient itself or a lack of beeswax or if it’s even that at all, but it seem to be a common theme. If anyone can enlighten me, please do.

Anyway, I came to this conclusion because I have a couple lip balms that seem to stay intact… smooth and lip balmy just like I like them. One of those lip balms are Badger’s Certified Organic Lip Balm. The main ingredients are Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Beeswax and Castor Oil (all organic) which seem to keep these in their smooth state so applying them is like a lip balm should be.

They have a zillion yummy flavors, my favorites seem to be the citrus-y ones like Pink Grapefruit and Tangerine but they all perform. They use all Certified Organic ingredients when possible as well as fair trade cocoa butter. I just love the conscientiousness of this company and can’t stop singing their praises (as evident by my love for their sunscreen and anti-bug balm too).

Get Your Balm On: You can purchase Badger Lip Balms in many places, but if you want to grab one (or 10) online you can find them on their website BadgerBalm.com and on Amazon.com!

Back in February, we published a guide to safer nail polishes.   Now that sandal weather is upon us, I wanted to pick up a safer nail polish for the summer.  Since I can get Honeybee locally, I purchased a bottle and set out to get a much needed pedicure.  I have to admit, that I was a little bit leary about using a water based nail polish.  It seemed a little clumpier, but I figured this was the price I pay for wanting to avoid chemicals.

I will say that it went on smoothly.  Smoother than I expected and dried pretty quickly.  Because I didn’t have a safer base or topcoat, I declined the salon’s and just went with just the polish I brought with me, which is chipping.  I wouldn’t say its chipped any more or less than conventional polish, but I definitely think it would have had more staying power with a base and top coat.   Honeybee’s site has lots of information about wearing their polish and how to keep it lasting longer.

Two of the best things that I love about this nail polish, though, is that it’s low VOC (volatile organic compounds), and it comes off with regular rubbing alcohol.    I don’t have to use highly smelly acetone!  Overall?  I highly recommend Honeybee Garden’s nail polish.  But invest in a bottle of the clear nail polish too!

Get it: Order Honeybee Gardens directly from honeybeegardens.com.

A lot of attention is being paid to the fact that baby skin care products being independently tested are coming up containing formaldehyde and 1,4 dioxane.  The source of the problem is not enough regulation from the government agencies requiring product makers to test their products to determine their safety.  In fact there is no one requiring any skin care or make up company to adhere to much of any safety standards before things hit the market.  Here on LovelyMama, that concern for us is with cosmetics and skin care for us too.

Lipstick, which I don’t wear much of but many do, contain a bevy of chemicals including parabens, phthalates and a bevy of other chemicals… oh yeah and LEAD.  Since we’re putting lipstick on our lips, we ingest it day to day.  A study came out from The Campaign For Safe Cosmetics where they independently tested found that “two-thirds of the 33 samples we tested contained detectable levels of lead; of those, half were above the legal limit for lead in candy.“   This is especially dangerous for pregnant women since lead can cross through to the placenta and cause birth defects or worse.

This is why chosing organic makeup is a smart idea.. not only does it not contain lead and icky chemicals, but they actually do good things for your lips, like actually moisturize them.

Some brands to try:

Dr.Hauschka Lipstick – Free of synthetic chemicals and Yellow Blue and Red lakes… instead it’s tinted with natural minerals and scented with essential oils.

NVEY ECO Organic Lipstick – I love the makeup coming from this company for their organic plant and mineral  ingredients and soft feminine colors.

*smooch*

Alima Pure is fast becoming my favorite makeup.  I totally dig the huge selection of colors they offer.    I must have 97 samples of their eye shadow and a little goes a long way.    I have fun playing with all of the colors and dressing my eyes up to match my mood.  For me this is big.  I’m a neutral girl at heart and generally pick something up to match my brown eyes.   I’ve been trying to be daring and use more color and thankfully, I don’t have to sacrifice my health in order to do that. All of their makeup is free of chemicals and preservatives and are pigmented with mineral colors.

Now Alima Pure has put out their new spring eyeshadow collection and I have to say, I’m loving it!  It makes me long for warmer spring weather and a cute spring outfit.

Get it: You can get your own samples (which are a great size and are rather inexpensive) directly from AlimaPure.com

BONUS! We’re giving away 3 sample sets of Alima Pure’s “April in Paris” gift collection.   To enter simply send an email to safemama.contestsATgmail.com with the subject “Alima Pure Giveaway“.  In order to qualify we need:

1. Your full name, and address.

2. Your favorite Alima Pure product.  (If you haven’t tried them yet, you can go to AlimaPure.com and pick something you’d like).

Your name and address are only needed so that we can notify you if you win.   LovelyMama does not sell or otherwise use your information in any way.  Contest is open to US residents only and ends at midnight on March 4th. Winners will be chosen at random.  Good Luck!

We get a lot of questions regarding nail polish.    People want pretty toes and pretty fingernails, and while some may not even be aware of the fact that most conventional nail polishes are bad for you, a lot more people  are becoming aware of the toxicity that comes with wearing nail polish.

Essentially, nail polish is a “paint” you’re putting on your nails.   When you cover up your nails, you’re covering up their ability to breathe, which makes them weak and brittle.  Nails, like anything else on your body, fair much better when they’re left naked.  Your best bet for healthy natural looking nails?  Get some oil to rub on your cuticles nightly ( be it vitamin e, or jojoba oil.  It doesn’t have to be expensive) and buff.   But we get it.   Summer comes along and you don’t want to be “that girl” on the block.  The one with the naked, busted up feet.   Or maybe you have an event coming up and you’d like to treat yourself.

So what’s the safest bet?   Well, unfortunately, there is no truly “safe” nail polish.  All polishes are made up of a combination of chemicals to help the color bond and harden to your nail.  It’s just a matter of finding one that’s “better” for you.    However, when choosing a “safer” nail polish, you should steer clear of the major ingredients below.

Ingredients to Avoid

• Toluene – Toluene is a solvent that can cause a whole mess of problems.   Including: reproductive and developmental toxin (awesome!),  lethargy, memory loss and skin irritation to name a few.   Toluene is used in paint thinners as well.  And really, do you want to slather paint thinner on your nails?   Yeah, I didn’t think so either.   Skin Deep gives toluene a whopping 10 on the hazard scale.
• dibutyl phthalate – If you’ve been reading either of the ‘Mamas’ sites long enough, you’ll know to steer clear of phthalates.  Briefly, they’re endocrine disruptors.   Long term exposure to phthalates can not only hinder fertility, but may also cause liver and kidney damage.
• Formaldehyde – Remember when you dissected that fetal pig in high school biology?  Remember the awful noxious smell that hit you in the face when they opened up the big bucket of pigs?   You can thank formaldehyde for the dizziness and raging headache you received as a result.   Formaldehyde will not only make your indoor air toxic, but it’s also a known carcinogen.  Among many things.
• Ethyl Acetate – Another one of those respiratory irritants.   Not one that gets a lot of recognition in the grand scheme of bad nail polish ingredients, but one that I like to steer clear of nonetheless.

The good news is that a lot of companies have moved forward in removing these chemicals from their formulations.  But not all have yet, so this is definitely something you want to be on the look out for.   Oh yeah, and it might be a good time to go through all of that old nail polish you have stashed under your bed and purge it.  Old nail polish is gross anyway.

So what are our favorites?    LovelyMama Top Picks:

Honeybee Gardens – Honeybee is a water based nail polish that comes in 21 natural colors.  That is, it contains no FD&C colorants and is easy to remove with rubbing alchohol.  They do recommend removing about a week after wear, as it tends to be harder to remove after time.  Another bonus is that this nail polish is made locally to me, here in PA, so if you’re in the area, that’s less use of resources to have it delivered, or to go out and pick some up.  One drawback of this nail polish, is that it tends to have better staying power, the longer you give it to dry.   They recommend putting it on before bed and letting it dry overnight.   For toes, that might not be the best bet, as you’ll wake up with creases in your polish job.   I hate that!

Acquarella – Acquarella is another water based nail polish that also boasts no FD&C colorants (however, there are a few colors in question, that I know don’t exist in nature, so we’re still checking on that).  This brand says it dries fast to the touch, but like other water based nail polishes, letting it set for awhile is probably going to give you a longer lasting polish job.   Acquarella is also vegan!

Peace Keeper – Peace Keeper has a natural mineral based nail polish that rates well in Skin Deep (3).  They havea  paint base but don’t use any FD&C colorants.  They offer 5 shades and a clear topcoat too.  Since they aren’t totally water based they may last longer than other brands.  Nice colors!  Order right from their website IAmPeaceKeeper.com

Better Choices

(Unsure about the ingredients, so use caution)

PolishedMama – They don’t list every ingredient but they do tout “ NO toluene, xylene, formaldehyde, ethyl acetate, acetone or dibutyl phthalate” so we’re pretty comfy recommending them.  They have a remover too!

Priti Nail Polish – This one we’ve heard a lot about, but I can’t seem to find ingredients online anywhere.  They’re free of the major three ingredients.   Use at your own risk.

Take it off!!!

Ok so you chipped your nail trying to pry a bath toy out of your dishwasher… what’s safer?  We like HoneyBee’s Oderless Nail Polish Remover, available on their website.   We also like Priti’s soy based polish remover.   And of course, as mentioned above, Polished Mama has a remover as well that also works on those conventional nail polishes (you know if you’re running off to find safe remover for that nasty toxic stuff you’re currently wearing).

Go Au Natural

Not sure about this polish stuff? Try a polishless manicure… some vitamin E oil a nail file and a buffer can do wonders for your piddies.

• With a nail file, shape your nails as desired
• Soak hands in warm water (add a few drops of an essential oil if you like) to soften cuticles
• Use an orange stick to push your cuticles back (we dont recommend cutting them, that could open you to bacteria and germs…)
• Using a nail buffer, Shine your nails up to perfection.  We like the 1-2-3 Nail Buffer from Bath & Body Works or the 4 Sided Nail Buffer from HoneyBee Gardens.
• Follow with a nice hand lotion like Revolution Organics All Over Skin Creme.  At night add a few drops of vitamin E oil to cuticles to keep them happy.

I’m seriously turning into Kathy, and quickly.  This winter has been very raw and dry for us.  Something I don’t quite remember last winter, our first one back after living in California.  We’re all feeling the pain of dry skin, and my lips have been no exception.  Even my son has been becoming friends with lipbalm.  I have at least 17 tubes of it in my handbag and I use every single one.

For Christmas, my husband surprised me with some Alima Pure nourishing lipbalm.   What I love is that this lipbalm also comes tinted too.

I really love Alima Pure’s makeup.  I ended up with tons of eyeshadow samples for Christmas, which I’ve been loving all of.  But this lipbalm, I love, because not only has it been keeping my lips soft, it also adds a bit of color, which actually lasts, thanks to natural pigments.  The light colors are great for a hint of color for daytime and the darker colors are great for going out.  Use it as a base for your regular lip gloss or lipstick to keep your lips from drying out or just use it by itself.  And because they’re just a regular tube of lipbalm, it’s not big and bulky, which means you can fit one, or 20 in your handbag.

Alima Pure has several shades of this product, along with all of their products.  One of the many things I love about them.

Get it: You can order any of Alima Pure’s products, directly from their website.

I received an Nvey Eco eye color palette from Statia for my birthday last year during our “make up greening” frenzy and have been using it ever since.  Nvey Eco is a certified organic make up company that produces a wide range of cosmetics with high quality in mind.  Not to mention their products are free of talc, parabens, preservatives, SLS, propylene glycol, gm’s (genetically modified), petroleum based ingredients and they don’t test on animals or use nano technology.  That’s make up I can use without too much worry.  But do they work? YES.

I really love the performance of Nvey Eco’s eye shadows… they have a nice range of color palettes and each palette comes with 5 shades that are coordinated to fit your style for day or night.  I’ve abused the palette I own but the investment is worth it… it has a lot of miles left on it.

Nvey Eco also creates foundation, powder, blush, and lip colors and treatments.  All for a top  price but the products stand up to the challenge.  I’ll be an Nvey Eco customer for sure.  I’ve got my eye n eye shadow palette No. 5…

Get It: Buy their products on the Nvey Website, on Amazon or on SaffronRouge.com

One of the goodies I got for Christmas from Kathy, was Afterglow organic aloe concealer.   I generally don’t wear concealer, because of the weight factor, but you know, with a toddler and another on the way, I probably feel like I look more haggard than I am.  Or maybe I really do look that haggard.  Either way, I totally understand what my mother used to complain about when she said “getting old sucks.”

This is mainly meant to be used as an on the spot treatment, not as an all over foundation, but just for fun, I wanted to see what it would feel like if I used it as a foundation.   It’s not heavy.  It’s a little weird feeling.  Almost chalky at times.   It didn’t bother me to wear it, though, and it covered evenly.  I also used it as recommended and it was fabulous on the dark circles under my eyes and also worked great as a primer for my eye shadow.  I tend to notice that mineral shadow doesn’t stay on my eyelids as long, unless I use a good primer and this works perfectly.

The other benefit to this stuff is that it makes my face feel awesome after I wash it off.  The next morning, my face is not only clear, but there’s not a flake of dry skin to be found.    I’ll probably mention that again when I review the mineral powder in the near future.  It’s pretty amazing, given that my skin looks horrific due to the weather and pregnancy.

The one drawback to this, is that it does contain phenoxyethanol, which isn’t exactly a favorable ingredient, but since I use it only on special occasions and in small areas, I don’t mind that much.   But I did email the company to find out if they have any plans to switch to an alternative, and I’ll post any response I get to this review.  Other than that, the concealer comes in three different shades (which they’ll happily exchange if it’s not the right one for you) is otherwise free of other icky ingredients we like to steer clear of.

Get it: You can order any of Afterglow’s great products directly from their website.

I’m an unfortunate soul who has jacked up stubby lashes.   I never really cared too much about what type of mascara I used, because nothing is going to magically transform my stubby puny lashes into something even remotely resembling that of a super model.  I don’t care what sort of promises the commercials make.   They’re so bad that not even false eyelashes stay on.    So in the past, I’d buy something on sale and settle for marginally better lashes.   It’s a curse, but then again, my sister always complains that I got the boobs in the family, so I guess we’re even.

But, then I started to worry about the issue of chemicals in my mascara.   Not only petrochemcicals, but anti bacterials, fragrance,  minute levels of…. mercury?   So I stopped using mascara after my son was born.   Much like everything else, I rarely had time (or reason) to wear it when he was really young.    But for Christmas, I wanted all the girly goodies to feel good about myself again, and one of the things I asked for was some 100% Pure fruit pigmented mascara.   Even though I really love all of the 100% Pure products that I had tried, I was still kind of skeptical about how it would work.   I mean, isn’t chemicals what gives you those so-called fabulously long lashes (well, in other people anyway)?     But much like everything else in this greener journey, the only way I’ll find out is by trying.

Fruit pigment me surprised, this stuff is pretty good.   It hasn’t turned my lashes into supermodel lashes,  but it did make them look more presentable.  It doesn’t clump and it also didn’t irritate my eyes, which has happened to me in the past and I know is also a big factor for a lot of people with sensitive eyes.   It also didn’t smudge or fade.  And came off easily with some soap and water.   Also, I should point out that it smells awesome.   Yes, mascara that smells good.   It actually smells like fruit.  It’s kind of bizarre at first, but it grows on you.   I’ve also heard a lot of people complain about this mascara being dry.  I’m not an expert, but so far, I haven’t found that to be the case.  In fact, most of the conventional drug store mascaras that I’ve used have always been too goopy for my liking, so this stuff works like a charm for me.   I’m definitely loving this stuff,  so why ruin a good thing?

Get it: The 100% Pure makeup line, including the mascara, is only available through QVC, which you can order directly online.  However, my husband was able to find some on ebay for a little bit cheaper, so it’s worth trying to shop around.

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