Cruelty free pinup: e.l.f cosmetics

Hello! Yes, it’s me, the long lost blogger.

Somehow, I haven’t quite managed to hit on the magical “I have something to post once or twice a week” posting schedule that some of my favourites manage to maintain. I’d love to get into doing more outfit of the day posts, but it’s hard at the moment as I don’t have a decent camera (soon though, I promise) and when I have someone take photos for me, I have to wait until they have time to process them before I can use! So for now, you get erratic posts with iPhone pictures. Woo! Really selling myself here.

Okay, so now that’s said, moving on to the important stuff; makeup.

One of my most popular posts has been about my decision to only buy cruelty free products, so I want to extend on that and tell you a little bit about a makeup brand I discovered earlier this year; e.l.f. Cosmetics.
I’m a regular XOVain reader and somewhere, either in a post or the comments, someone said something about e.l.f. that piqued my interest. I did some research, found their Australian arm and subscribed to their mailing list.

On top of being cruelty free (and both PETA and CCF certified), E.L.F. is cheap. Like, wicked cheap. Once upon a time, I’d walk up to my favourite cosmetic counter and drop $200 on maybe three or four products. These days, I log onto www.elfcosmetics.com.au and drop $42 and get all this:

That's a full size foundation, set of eyebrow stencils, a lipstick brush, a blush, package of eye makeup removers, a pressed powder compact and a mascara. For $42.

Now I know, cheap doesn't always mean good. But the thing is, e.l.f is. It’s really, really gosh-darn good. The last time I had their foundation, it lasted twice as long as my old Benefit one did; gives, in my opinion, a much better coverage while at the same time feeling a lot lighter. It’s $12. Seriously. I could buy four for what I paid for foundation previously!

This Essential Clarifying Pressed Powder, sells for $3 and while I love it as a product, is one of the only things I’ve bought from e.l.f. that doesn’t last as long as a premium product. That being said, it's been going strong for quite a while. But really, at that price, I could buy 16 packets of it for what I paid for a more expensive brand, which only lasted a couple of months more than the cheaper one anyway.

One of my desert island products is their lip exfoliator which has made a noticeable difference to the condition of my lips and the way that lipstick lasts. You just rub it over your lips for a few seconds — I usually do mine before I do my sunscreen, so by the time I get to my foundation, most of the sugary grains have dissolved and I just run a wet washer over my lips. Oh, and it tastes divine!

There’s a lot of talk about how their prices are a lot higher than they are in the US, but they’re still a lot lower than most brands here. I’ve found that as I’ve been running out of products at home, e.l.f. has had a comparable, cheaper and in many ways, better one to replace it.

The only negative is that their shipping is a little on the steep side, with you needing to spend $100 to get it for free. Spending $100 is actually hard work with prices this low! But if you sign up to their mailing list, the offer enough free or reduced shipping deals that I’ve never actually paid full price.

They’re now stocked in Kmart Australia with the same prices as online, but I’ve found their range to be seriously reduced in-store and products like foundation are never available (and they sell out really quickly too).

Even if you’re not going cruelty free, I’d say saving prices provides another bonus and would encourage all you pinups to give e.l.f a try. And if you’ve got any questions, would like to hear a bit more about some other products, and actually see my face in some of them, let me know.

*This is not a sponsored post and all opinions are my own. 

Cruelty free pinup

I was planning on doing a post about how much I love a new eyeliner I bought a couple of weeks ago, but then I made an accidental discovery and I've decided to write about cruelty free and my journey to taking the no animal testing pledge.

For the past two years, I've been making a conscious effort to switch to cruelty free cosmetics. I’m a makeup-loving girl and I've gone through phases where I’ll buy every product someone shows me because I love trying things out.

But I've become a bit more careful in my choices lately. And unfortunately for me, that means one of my favourites has just been struck off the list of safe products.

Here’s the thing about cruelty free products that I've learned since I started out on this journey; many companies will say on their own websites that they are not tested on animals when the reality is, in some way, many of them are still either testing on animals in some countries, or an arm of a company that still tests on animals.

The products that are produced in Australia may not be tested here (and are likely not), but there are still countries that have mandatory animal testing laws, like China. Recently, there’s been news that the laws in China have been revised so that cosmetics deemed “ordinary” by the government are no longer subject to mandatory animal testing. There’s a great article on XO Vain written by Marci about what these changes to the laws mean, which you can check out here.

The changes in the law currently only apply to products from within China, which means all those big brands produced elsewhere who ship into China are still subject to the mandatory animal testing.These laws also don’t apply to post-market testing, where Chinese authorities can pull random products off the shelf at any time and test them on animals.

China is a HUGE market for cosmetics companies. One that many aren’t prepared to miss out on, which results in the spin we see here in Australia (and in other countries).

Nowadays when I hear about a new cosmetics brand that I'd like to try, I have a list of steps I take to check their animal testing status:

1. I visit www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au and www.peta.org/living/beauty/beauty-without-bunnies/ and look at their cruelty free lists (I even have their apps on my phone so I can check while I’m out). The lists are changing all the time, but aren’t always definitive and don’t always take into consideration parent companies (see point 4 for more on this). I advise going a few steps further if the company you’re researching doesn’t show up on the list. 
2. I visit the company’s website and check their animal testing policies and whether or not they ship to China. Remember, that just because they say they’re against animal testing, doesn’t always mean that they don’t do it to reach a lucrative market like China. 
3. I visit Sephora China’s brand page to check if the brand is stocked there:  http://www.sephora.cn/brand.html 
4. I check if the brand has a parent company. Because sometimes, brands that are cruelty free, like the Body Shop, are owned by companies that do test on animals. The Body Shop is owned by L’Oreal, who do sell into the Chinese market. (There’s also a really interesting Choice investigation here where Body Shop products were found in airports in China) Or Urban Decay, which appears on PETA’s list of cruelty free companies, but is also owned by L’Oreal; and sadly, MAC which is owned by Estee Lauder.  

I was doing a random check-up of a new brand a friend told me about last week, when I went to Sephora China website and saw, right at the top of the page, Benefit. This was my most beloved cosmetic brand and the one I wanted to write about a good product for this post.

There are choices you have to make when you choose to become cruelty free, and I’m not going to judge anyone for the level to which they pursue, or don’t pursue this. But for me, it’s as though once I’m down the proverbial rabbit hole,  I can never get out. This means that now I know some of my old favourites sell in markets that allow animal testing, I’m voting with my wallet and won’t buy them until they withdraw.

I’m taking baby steps to being cruelty free which means that I’m switching from my old favourites to brands like E.L.F Australia (which has the added bonus of being quality products at super cheap prices), Australis, Face of Australia, and Lime Crime.

I’ve already moved my deodorant, body wash and moisturiser to Moo Goo (it’s better for my sensitive skin too), and my face wash comes from Lush. In the future, whenever something runs out in my bathroom, I’m pledging not to reach for a product in ignorance, but to research first.