My Clean Makeup Journey  

When I was 18 I worked at the Estee Lauder counter in Macy’s. Despite the terrible pay, it was one of my favorite jobs ever. And I was really good at it. I lived for making women feel confident. I will never forget when a mom, daughter, and grandmother trio came to my counter and waited for me. They wanted me to do their makeup because they were invited backstage to a Tim Mcgraw and Faith Hill concert in Tennessee. Not only that they were invited into their home! This was through the Make A Wish Foundation because the sweet, beautiful girl had cancer. I’m tearing up writing this because they made such an impact on me. It was beyond special getting to do their makeup for them and pampering them for the day. All 3 ladies looked amazing and I could tell they felt it too. Makeup can be truly transformative. 

What I didn’t know when I was 18 and was naive thinking I was selling real beauty, was that all of this crap was just chemicals wrapped up in pretty packaging. Ugh the deceit. While it was making women (including myself) look and feel beautiful, it was actually causing harm to our health. It took me probably 10 years later to learn this fact. 

This is when I trashed ALL of my makeup and replaced it with a cleaner alternative. Learning this fact, I wanted to stop causing harm to my body so for me, it was totally worth the investment. Let me tell you though, a lot of these clean makeup products sucked at the time. Especially the mascara, my ultimate go-to. But lucky for me, brands started improving the formulas and just like skincare, a lot more beauty brands started leaning into going clean. 

Now, there are a lot of great options (and also a lot of mediocre ones). One thing I love about Sephora is that they put the clean seal on products that don’t contain around 50 of the worst chemicals. This makes it easy to shop clean. 

So you don’t have to spend a lot of money doing trial and error like I’ve done for years here’s a roundup for my favorite, every day go-tos for clean makeup – 

Foundation – 

Westman Atelier – Vital Skin Full Coverage Foundation and Concealer Stick

Westman Atelier – Vital Skincare Dewy Foundation Drops

ILIA – Super Serum Skin Tint SPF 40 Foundation 

Primer – 

Glow Recipe – Watermelon Glow Niacinamide Dew Drops Serum

Concealer – 

ILIA – True Skin Serum Concealer with Vitamin C

Mascara – 

Tok Beauty – Eyes That Tok Mascara 

ILIA – Limitless Lash Lengthening Clean Mascara

Highlighter – 

Westman Atelier – Liquid Super Loaded All-Over Illuminator Drops with Vitamin C

Westman Atelier – Super Loaded Tinted Cream Highlighter

Bronzer – 

Westman Atelier – Beauty Butter Matte Powder Bronzer

Lip – 

MERIT – Signature Lip Lightweight Lipstick

LANEIGE – Lip Sleeping Mask Intense Hydration with Vitamin C

Summer Fridays – Lip Butter Balm for Hydration & Shine

Eyes – 

Roen – Mood 4 Ever Palette

I’d love to learn about clean beauty products you’ve been using and absolutely love! Drop your faves in the comments.