MINIMAL & NATURAL

I've always been interested in makeup but over the last two years it became a serious hobby. I would spend my downtime watching YouTube beauty gurus and spent a large sum of money on finding the best products that really worked for me. But as my collection grew and grew I became overwhelmed by the options. On top of that I felt ill spending massive amounts of money on this stuff. I would justify my purchases at the time but be mad at myself a week later when I realized I really didn't need that blush. After a recent inventory of my makeup drawer I realized I had over 30 nude lipsticks. Why would I ever need so many variations of the same color? I knew which ones were my favorites and which formulas performed best. This only meant that I wasn't using the products that I loved and I was wasting my time and money on products that fell flat. After taking a hard look at myself I realized I really wanted to live more minimally and in doing so spend less.

On top of this desire to spend less, I came across a few YouTube channels and blog posts about the health concerns surrounding conventional beauty products and the toxic ingredients cosmetic companies use. I've always been interested in choosing natural/non-toxic beauty products on two conditions: if they are readily available to me and perform well. I've definitely gone through my fair share of natural makeup and skincare that just didn't work. Luckily, natural products are slowly becoming more mainstream (though they still need more attention) and some products rival more conventional brands in terms of performance. 

I did my fair share of research and stumbled on EWG's Skin Deep database where they rank beauty products between 0 and 10 (0 being a low hazard and 10 being a high hazard) based on their ingredients. Cue spending a whole day searching EWG to discover the rankings of products I already owned. It was surprising. Some brands that I thought were bad turned out to be a low hazard while others, especially some high-end brands, scored very high.

So now I was sitting there with a fairly large makeup collection where 90% of the products weren't natural and a good portion were rated a 5 or higher by EWG. That's scary. What do I do? 

After talking some sense into myself, I realized that It would be impossible to eliminate all toxins and bad ingredients from my products. That's just a given in the world we live in. But I could make an effort to choose safer products. I decided I would be comfortable using products that were ranked a 3 or lower even if they weren't deemed "natural." 

With my collection I figured I could take two approaches:
1. Throw out every item that ranked higher than a 3 and replace them now or,
2. Use up what I have and replace products with more natural options as I go.

My heart told me to toss anything bad and start fresh. My brain told me to be smart and use up what I have since that was money I would be throwing out. 

I ended up mixing these two approaches. For instance, I realized that I owned a few products like the Bite Beauty lipsticks and Tarte products that while aren't the cleanest are made with safer ingredients than most. Despite its fancy price tag, I tossed a Christian Dior Creme de Rose lip balm because it ranked a 10 and even though it worked really well for me I knew I wasn't comfortable using it again. Ignorance truly is bliss.

I also discovered a great brand called Pure Anada that is local to Manitoba which makes some wonderful products. I picked up a blush, brow powder, concealer,  mascara, and facial spray from them over the course of a few trips. While it sucked to spend more money on makeup these products really are awesome and I see them completely replacing some of the ones that I decided to throw out.

I feel a lot better now. I've decluttered a lot of my makeup collection and even more so I have a system set into place that helps me from purchasing spontaneously. If I want a product I have to search it on the database to find its ranking and if it isn't a 3 or lower I won't purchase it. 

Let me know if you've come across some natural beauty brands and products that you love. How do you control yourself from spending too much on a hobby?