Pretty Cheeky

I've blogged before about my love for the natural cheek stains from tarte. The chubby, push-up packaging is cute and portable, and the cream/gel formulas blend easily and look natural. Plus, they're full of good stuff—antioxidants, mineral pigments, and natural fragrance—and free of bad ingredients like parabens, phthalates, and preservatives.

My favorite shade is the plummy/rose "blushing bride." But the shimmery coral "eco-cheek," tarte's newest shade and part of its Summer 2009 line, is a close second and a great alternative. I blended a dab on each cheekbone and the result was a warm flush of color. And the shimmer looks natural, not disco-ball.

Herbal Relief

Just in time for a celebratory birthday dinner this weekend, a huge, unpoppable zit has erupted on my face. If I smile a reeeaalllly wide smile, I can hide it. (But really, who can walk around smiling like that all day and not appear dangerously crazy?)

My regular, non-natural zit cream hasn't proved up to the task, so today I ran out to CVS and bought Burt's Bees Herbal Blemish Stick. It's a medicinal smelling roll-on potion that uses tea tree oil and willowbark (a natural source of zit-fighting salicylic acid) to treat pimples.

I'm tempted to walk around with this thing glued to my face. Please, zit, go away!

Super Skinny

Happy Earth Day! On the holiday intended to create awareness for the environment, I thought I'd give a shout-out to a super cool, eco-friendly-in-more-ways-than-one skincare company: Brooklyn's own skinnyskinny. 

skinnyskinny's product line, which includes soaps, body oils, bath salts, and lip balms, contains certified organic ingredients and is packaged with materials that are all recycled, reclaimed, sustainable, or biodegradable. And the company itself is 100% carbon-neutral.

But here's another thing I love about skinnyskinny: It makes these lovely organic bath salts that come packaged in pretty, cork-stopped glass bottles. At $34, they're not cheap. But they also sell "refill" packages that come in plain brown biodegradable coffee bags and start at $29 for a one-pound sack. The skinnyskinny folks actually encourage you to buy in bulk, find your own container, and reduce waste (not to mention shipping costs, if you're buying online.) I think that's pretty cool. 

Earth Day Beauty

This Earth Day, April 22nd, green-living guru Danny Seo is launching a line of eco-friendly bath and skincare products called wholearth beauty + bath.  

Reasons why I'm excited about this line: 

• Several of the products, including the perfume spray and the body wash, are USDA certified organic.
  
• The packaging is made from sustainable and/or renewable sources; cartons are made from recycled paper and jars and bottles from 100% Post Consumer Recycled  materials.
  
• The entire line promises to be free of ingredients like parabens, petrochemicals, phthalates, SLS and SLES, mineral oil, and synthetic dyes.
  
• All that earth-friendly packaging is pretty enough to display on your bathroom counter. Which is great if your bathroom, like mine, has just one teeny, tiny, stocked-to-the-brim cabinet.
  

The 12-product line will be available at select Anthropologie stores (another plus—I love Anthropologie!) and I plan to try it as soon as I can get there.  

Pretty Natural Baby: Nasty Ingredients Notice

Your baby's bath may not be the squeaky-clean experience you think it is: Last month the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics released a report called "No More Toxic Tub," which found that "dozens of leading body care products for babies and children contain the toxic chemicals formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane." These chemicals are linked to cancer and skin allergies, and are banned from personal-care products in many other countries.

An independent lab tested 48 popular products and found that 61 percent contained both chemicals. But don't bother looking for these ingredients on your own kid's shampoo bottle — they're not actual ingredients at all; rather, they're contaminants, and therefore not listed on the label.

Here's what you can do:

• Check to see if your favorite baby brand contains these contaminants.
• Look for common culprit ingredients like PEG-100 stearate, polyethylne, ceteareth-20 and sodium laureth sulfate, which are likely to be contaminated with 1,4-dioxane.
• Ask Congress to take action.
• Look for natural alternatives. (Skin Deep, the Environmental Working Group's Cosmetic Safety Database, is a great resource.)

I use the California Baby Super Sensitive line for my toddler almost exclusively, but on occasion I've bought other brands — brands that it turns out tested positive for 1,4-dioxane. The CSC report doesn't cover natural products like California Baby, but you can get the dirt, so to speak, on their ingredients at Skin Deep.

Happily, the California Baby Super Sensitive Shampoo & Bodywash tested well. Of course, as the CSC notes, the exposure to these chemicals from a squirt of bubble bath or a dollop of shampoo is teensy. But if you can find alternatives, why not use them?