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Going Green With Your Makeup Routine | Luscious Lips

I’m so excited to share my top 5 picks for Luscious Lips this Spring! Natural and organic can also be fierce and fabulous, and I’ve got just what you need for the perfect pout.

ONE: I’ve learned that luscious lips begin with good preparation. I’ve tried all manner of lip balms and treatments in my time, and one rises well above the rest. Not surprisingly, it comes from the amazing Tata Harper and her team of organic innovators. There are three different lip treatments in her line, but my favourite is BE ADORED, a rosy-tinted lip treatment that softens my kisser and gives it a subtle, natural-looking pomegranate stain. {That is more than just a description! The stain of colour is literally derived from pomegranates!} The magic for me is this lip treatment’s ability to increase volume with their Bio-Fill technology which is, of course, derived from totally natural and organic ingredients like olive, apricot and avocado oils. BE ADORED works beautifully on its own or as a base for the rest of my top picks for perfect pouts!

TWO: Remember the post on Cheeks? I know I already raved about Vapour’s Multi-Use Stain {in Crave} in that post, but the product is so fantastic it deserves a second high-five. The colour is much more subtle than how it looks onscreen, and while it applies as a clear and radiant peach on my cheeks, with a more concentrated hand on the lips it creates the perfect orangey-red pout. For my fair complexion with slightly golden undertones, this makes for the perfect dramatic red lipstick. LOVE it!

THREE: Once again, this product is one that makes the grade in two separate categories! RMS Beauty’s Lip2Cheek {in Smile} is my go-to fave for something bright and fresh without being too sachrine a colour. The coconut oil base means it blends beautifully and leaves lips soft and supple.

FOUR: I always have to have one classic lipstick in my bag that I can wear with just about everything. I think of it as an enhancement on what nature intended – polished enough to look like I’ve pulled myself together, but not so dramatic that I look overdone. For me, that lipstick is Vapour Organics Siren Lipstick in Desire. It was the lovely ladies at Saffron Rouge who put me on to this must-have makeup find, and the texture of this lipstick is perhaps what impresses me most. Many products that are adequately moisturizing disappear about 30 minutes after they’ve been applied. Vapour’s Siren Lipstick, however, softens with staying-power to match. It’s the perfect all-day “never let them see you sweat, pull it all together with a smile” product. I’m jonesing to try pretty much every shade they’ve got!

FIVE: For gloss, why not go for something totally dramatic, like Vapour’s Elixir Lip Plumping Gloss in Bitten? My thanks again goes out to the ladies at Saffron Rouge for this fabulous find. This gorgeous lip-shiner was named People Style Watch’s #1 Lip Gloss, and the texture is amazing. Never sticky or tacky, just outrageously sexy, gossamer shine. Full-on glamour in a tube.

So those are my top five picks for luscious lips this Spring! I hope this leaves you empowered to be green, clean and organic with your makeup routine while totally embracing your fierce and fabulous self! Watch for more recommendations on body and hair, and some makeup tutorials to come!

xo
s.

By Sarah Walker The Curated House|May 2nd, 2013|0 Comments

Going Green With Your Makeup Routine | Cheeks

Ah, yes! Spring, you’ve finally decided to unfurl your long-awaited blanket of beauty before us. The birds are singing. The sun is shining. The rains are raining and teasing the crocuses up from their slumber. The buds are budding and the greens are greening. The temperatures are warming. And all I want to do is soak up some Vitamin D until I’m fresh faced and have that proverbial spring in my step that I’ve been longing for all winter.

This really is the perfect time of year to update our makeup routines. Nature is reminding us to get back to the earth, to choose what is good for us from her natural bounty, and to use only that which will have us looking {and feeling} our healthiest. So, in my continued journey toward going totally green, clean and non-toxic with my makeup routine, today I’m sharing my favourite products for cheeks. I think you’ll love them as much as I do!

If you’re like me, you have more than one look for your cheeks. I tend to vacillate between two different trends – Fresh Faced {subtle and clean} and Bronzed {contoured, bronzed and glowing} . Here are my top picks for clean, non-toxic products to help you accomplish these two trends with a truly healthy glow!

FRESH FACED:

1. Vapour Organic | Aura Multi-Use Stain in Crave – This colour may look outrageous on screen, but on skin it’s nothing short of gorgeous. It gives that perfect “full of fresh air and sunshine” look with a translucency that could be mistaken for your own natural colour. The clear peachy-coral is extremely subtle with a light touch, and the texture of this product is both moisturizing and buildable, allowing you to decide how subtle or dramatic you’d like it to be. Because it is a stain, it makes an INCREDIBLE lipstick as well, and it lasts a lot longer than most natural lipsticks I’ve tried. I love using this lightly on cheeks and more dramatically on lips {it deepens into more of an orangey-red on my lips when I apply it generously}. Add a bit of concealer and some mascara and I’m fresh-faced and ready to go!

2. RMS Beauty | Lip2Cheek in Smile – This colour is slightly brighter than the Vapour Multi-Use Stain, but equally as subtle and buildable. It is also incredibly moisturizing due to the coconut oil base, leaving a gorgeous, dewy finish that lasts all day long. As the product name suggests, it is also a multi-use wonder and one of my favourite “fresh and bright” lip looks, working like a lipstick mixed with a good lip balm. I choose this one on days when I need to look a bit brighter and more youthful, and it blends beautifully with the Living Luminizer on the top of my cheek bones.

THE ULTIMATE ILLUMINATOR:

I don’t know about you, but I have tried so many different illuminators over the years that I feel a bit like Goldilocks. Some are too sparkly with visible “glitter” particles that might suit a tweenager, but not me. Some are too dry {most of the powder ones, in fact} and actually highlight my wrinkles rather than giving me that youthful glow I’m after. But RMS Beauty’s Living Luminizer? Well, this one is just right. In fact, it is so right that it is on every beauty mag’s must-have list from here to kingdom come. I once again have the lovely ladies at Saffron Rouge to thank for sending me a small sample of this glowing wonder. The texture is incredibly creamy and – again, thanks to the coconut oil – it simply melts into the skin. There is not a hint of visible “glitter” particle to be found, and yet it gives the look of having just had an incredible facial, a great night’s sleep and some fresh air by the sea all at once. I also use this on lids, on the inside corner of eyes, and just below my brows depending on the look I’m after. This product takes up the whole category by itself, and it fills it up quite nicely, thank you very much!

BRONZED BEAUTY:

1. Vapour Organic | Solar Translucent Bronzer in Mirage – I must confess that I have not tried this product yet, but if the texture is anything like the luxuriousness of the Mult-Use Stain and their INCREDIBLE foundation, I’m in. This is 100% on my wish-list for summer.

2. A pleasant surprise! Remember the gorgeous Alima Pure shadows I introduced you to with the post on Eyes? Well, the duo of Chai and Brown Sugar over a peachy base of Mohair makes for a gorgeous bronzed glow! A little goes a long way using these mineral shadows on your cheeks, so use great brushes like Alima’s #15 Flat Brush {for contour} and their #23 Kitten Brush {for apples, highlights and blending}.

And with that I wish you contour and highlight, freshness and glow, and a makeup bag filled with gorgeous products that will have you putting your best {and healthiest} face forward!

xo
s.

By Sarah Walker The Curated House|April 18th, 2013|2 Comments

Going Green With Your Makeup Routine | The Great Mascara Search, Part 1

I have so enjoyed the process of discovering incredible, natural, toxin-free products on this journey of going completely green with my makeup routine. It has been quite an education, and I’m so excited that we can share in the learning together!

I must thank the lovely ladies at Saffron Rouge for so graciously leading me to some of the niche products that I was searching for. Case in point: they led me to our first mascara contender in The Great Mascara Search {aka The GMS}! Yes, mascara is so important that I’ve given it its own category in this journey! And so, without further ado, here are my thoughts on Dr. Hauschka’s Volume Mascara.

In weeks to come, I’ll be sharing some makeup tutorials from the very talented Justine McKnight. Her response to using this mascara was that she was quite pleasantly surprised at how amazingly it applies – she wasn’t expecting that out of a natural product!

It’s true – it applies like a dream. The brush has the perfect density of bristles to ensure that every lash gets coated without clumping. The product lengthens and defines lashes for an easy natural look with one coat, but it is also buildable for a much more dramatic look with a few coats. It is essentially everything I would look for in a mascara…except…I have watery eyes. And this is neither waterproof nor created for ladies who tear up easily. So for me, the search continues! But if you are not a watery-eyed woman like myself, then I cannot recommend this mascara highly enough. It really does hit all of my “must haves” but that last one!

Next week I’ll be sharing my top picks for cheeks as I continue Going Green With My Makeup Routine. Hope you’ll join me!

To your toxin-free, glamorous health.
xo
s.

By Sarah Walker The Curated House|April 10th, 2013|1 Comment