I have a love/hate relationship with Sephora. I love walking through there and playing with all the makeup, but I hate how there is just so much. How am I supposed to know which brand is best? Which one looks best on my skin? Which mascara is worth $45 and why is that better than my $6 mascara at home?

It’s all quite overwhelming.

And that’s why I choose my friends based on how good their makeup looks. Ok, so that’s not (totally) true, but I do depend on my friends to guide me in the direction of quality products for my face. When they tell me they love a product or brand I trust them, and I haven’t been disappointed yet.

Most recently, a friend of mine started going on and on (and on) about Tarte cosmetics. I knew nothing about them, but after spending an hour with this girl (of which, only 5 minutes were not spent talking about Tarte), I decided to take the brand for a test run myself. I ordered some of their most popular products online (it seems that various beauty editors are quite enamored as well) and tried them out.

And let me just say – I am addicted. Like seriously addicted. Not only are the products super high quality, but they are completely natural, healthy and earth friendly as well! I’m a major recycling dork (I even reuse Ziploc bags….) so that is something that is really important to me.

Anyways, I tried out a bunch of things, but here are my all-time favorite Tarte products: Read More »

At least the products are, according to former Ms. America, Susan Jeske. After having some serious skin and medical issues she sought the help of a holistic healer who attributed her problems to the beauty products she used every day. Jeske stopped using everything and within 2 weeks all of her skin problems were gone.

Shocked and angry, Susan Jeske gave up her job promoting beauty products to find out just what was going into the products men and women use every single day.

What she found was not pretty.

It turns out that there are 12 chemicals in makeup, shampoo and even toothpaste that could be toxic to our health! Yes, the products we turn to to keep us fresh, clean and looking beautiful could be the very things causing all of our problems.

And the government and beauty industry know about the negative effects of these chemicals. According to Jeske, “More than 1,100 harmful chemicals used in personal care items have been banned in most European countries. In the U.S. only 10 have been banned.” 

Scary, right? It looks like the people behind all of our go-to products are working hard to keep the truth under wraps. So, what products should we be looking out for? Jeske’s Toxic 12 are: Read More »