Juice Beauty has a new Stem Cellular Repair collection that has me super excited. They make some pretty big claims about results, like reduction of lines and wrinkles, and improved skin tone and luminosity. Yes, I’ll have some of those, please. I chose two of the products to try, and was so thrilled within a few days of use I could hardly believe it. I wanted to be really, really sure the remarkable change was not just random (my skin can be great one day and crummy the next, what with the perimenopause wackiness). I’ve been using the products for a couple of months now, which for me means about 2.5 hormonal cycles. This is key, because I wanted to know how adding these products to my routine would affect my hormonal break-outs. Well, the evidence is in—and, may I just say WOOOO HOOOO! These products are truly great, and I do believe I’m in this for the long haul. Here are the changes I’ve experienced:

• Reduction in wrinkles, especially those deeper ones between my brows and on my forehead
• More even tone, with both older damage and recent acne scars much improved*
• Improved texture, with smaller pores and increased firmness
• Fewer blackheads
• Fewer blemishes, less inflammation
• Accelerated healing of existing blemishes
• General fabulousness

Stem Cellular Repair Booster Serum:  This is a thick, citrusy-smelling gel that goes on smoothly and kind of liquefies as it meets the warmth of skin. It gives me a little tingle, in a pleasant way. The first two times I used it I’d say it was more of a sting, which made me nervous because I tend to be sensitive. This is the first product that goes on my skin after cleansing, morning and night.  It adds a little moisture, but I still use my other products (another serum, hydrosol, oil). The idea is that it boosts what your other products do, and with the overall results I’m getting I’d say it does its job.  I love the the airless pump for keeping the serum stable, but the downside is you can’t tell how much product is left.

Stem Cellular Repair CC Cream: This is Juice Beauty’s answer to BB creams, which I admit I’d never heard of until I heard of CC. I’m all in favor of multitaskers, and I had always wanted to try a tinted moisturizer.  This is that, and so much more.   It has SPF 30 (zinc oxide), so it has become my face and neck sunscreen. The first time I tried it, I thought, “Wow, I wish my skin was in good enough shape to use such a light coverage product.” Then it occurred to me, maybe this would make my skin better—and it did. I now use much less of my mineral foundation to cover flaws, and mostly just for under my eyes. CC is a great base for mineral foundation spot application, takes care of evening my complexion, and leaves my skin with a velvety texture. I use a bit of finishing powder too, and that’s all I feel I need for a work day in front of a crowd. There hasn’t been any blazing sun yet where I am, but so far so good in the SPF department.

I have tried CC several times just on its own as a sunscreen during sweaty running and hiking, and it does the job. Of all the times I’ve done this, only twice I’ve had the tiniest bit of creasing around my eyes, and I put it on pretty thick to test it. I wouldn’t have even noticed the creasing if I hadn’t looked in my magnifying mirror.  I’ve had absolutely no creasing during regular daily activities. Here’s the down side: It only comes in two shades. I use Natural Glow (for fair to medium skin).  Warm Glow is for medium to dark skin tones. I’m thrilled the lighter shade works for my pale olive skin.

Alexandra** and Siobhan*** have both tried it and are just as pleased with the results. We all have different color undertones so that bodes well for versatility.

So is it the stem cells?  Is it the vitamin C?  Or just this particular combination of ingredients?  Whatever.  Thank you, Juice.

Are you intrigued??  Tell us!

*my DIY brightener is the bomb for sun damage, and works well on acne scars over time, but adding the Juice products definitely accelerates results

**Alexandra on the CC: “I love that this feels nothing like sunscreen and looks nothing like makeup. Yet it definitely evens out the skin tone and gives a bit of a dewy glow!”

***Siobhan on the CC: “I know I tend to get really excited about new things, but not often! I’m ga-ga about this product. I agree that it seems to not only wear well (light and not makeuppy or sunscreeny) but it also seems to be improving my skin. It’s become a desert-island must for me. I have the light one and it doesn’t add pigment to my fair skin, though it evens everything out nicely.”

Update: If you tried the other code earlier with no luck, we have a NEW code for a site-wide 15% off!

Ahhhh, summer just got a little bit better for us clean girls. This fine Friday we have beloved NuboNau here, offering a discount across ALL of their makeup brands–AND THE REST OF THE SITE. Because they are excellent curators that means a deal on RMS, La Bella Donna, Juice Beauty, Living Nature, Dr Hauschka, Mai Couture, Intelligent Nutrients (lip glosses) Vapour, ILIA, Butter London, Piggy Paint, as well as makeup tools and brushes and more. Boom!

Just browse NuboNau’s goodies here, and choose whatever you like and the discount will be applied at checkout. Just use the NN15 promo code, and ta-da.

The deal runs from today all the way to next Thursday—it’s open to US and Canada—and as always you get points with every purchase and a lovely sample set…plus you can use the code as often as you like during the week. Don’t forget to tell fellow readers what brands you’ve tried, and include your own reviews in the comments.

We promise that in the not-too-distant future our reviews are going to be organized in their own section—never cry wolf over here, we know—but they will! Until then you can visit some of our past makeup reviews (including some Morning Routines) here, or search in the tool bar. And while we’re at it, do you follow us on Facebook and get our newsletter? Cause you should. We’re way too busy to be spammy—you’ll get a single email a week at most—so look to the right and sign up there.

And just to get sappy for a second: We were pretty stoked when we last checked our readership stats, so we also just want to say thank you for being a part of the community. And thanks also to NuboNau and the other stores and brands that are helping further the cause for clean beauty.

Have a sunny summer weekend.

xo

your devoted clean girls

It all started when Alicia Silverstone told Woody Harrelson she wanted to take a bath with his kids.

Wait, what? When Alicia announced this to a roomful of writers at a recent event in LA, I nearly spat up my vegan cappuccino. But as the story unfolded, it made a little more sense. Alicia, who is friends with clean-boy Harrelson, had his kids over at the house and wanted to give them a bath. Harrelson, however, said no way. He didn’t want his kids splashing around in toxic bubble bath, and believe it or not, Alicia hasn’t always been a clean girl. Consider this her a-ha moment—and we’re super glad she had one.

Why? Because the longtime animal right activist and environmentalist is now championing clean beauty. Could we have asked for a better poster girl?

Now, she’s got a super-clean line to show for it. It’s called Alicia Silverstone for Juice Beauty and it so far has five products: There’s a lipstick, a cleanser, a moisturizer, a blushy-highlighter, and a pressed powder. They’re all vegan, of course, and they feel more like mainstream products—something Alicia says she wanted to get just so. The ingredient lists are through-and-through clean, and mostly organic.

Alicia is hardcore about ingredients—she told me she actually read a very early version of our book (!!) that we’d printed at Kinkos or something and sent to her—but she’s not the kind of dirty-clean girl who’s going to stop washing her hair, or say, test-drive the oil cleanse method. “I don’t like cream cleansers,” she says. “I just don’t feel clean! I like a gel or something that’s a little soapy feeling, without being stripping.”

“It was a no-brainer to align with Juice,” she tells me. “I never had to be like, Are you sure you want to use the shea butter?! You don’t have to worry about the ingredients when it’s all fruit juice and avocado.” As for how the partnership worked, she says, “They’d send me 10 different moisturizer textures and I’d send them notes on each.” Alicia admits she was super picky about scents, but her particular taste has paid off. “I promise this is the best-smelling cleanser out there!”

As for the moisturizer, she says she wanted something super light. “Nothing sticky and filmy—I wanted something that penetrated the skin but that was super nourishing.”

Here’s our take: The lipstick and powder are great, but not for every skin tone (stunning on her, and anyone in that color range). The highlighter is universal and produces dewy awesomeness. And the cleanser? She’s not lying: It smells incredible. Overall we’re pretty thrilled that Alicia and Juice have created something that’s at once so clean but that will also appeal to a more mainstream market. Juice has always had a knack for that.

Our time is limited, so before letting her go, I make sure to ask Alicia one of our favorite questions (which we’ll be asking you guys, too!):

When do you feel most beautiful?

Her response: “When I eat well, I feel so grounded and so connected—when I changed the way I eat my heart opened. I feel beautiful because of that.”

I tell her that we always post about Meatless Monday on the site, and that I’ll remind readers about her vegan cookbook The Kind Diet—who’s read it?—and she laughs.

“I wish it was meat-only Mondays.” The way her skin glows, she has me considering it.

So, what do you think about Alicia for Juice? Have you tried the line? Will you?

P.S. For more from Alicia, you can always visit her blog The Kind Life, where she regularly posts recipes. Happy MM!

They’re baaaaaaaaaaack. And just in time for the holidays. Our friends at Juice Beauty have a wonderful deal, on a wonderful, hydrating, and super-clean product from their USDA Organic line… a deal that also lets you stock up on some goodies for the gifting season (even if you’re gifting your very special self). So let’s get down to business.

Here’s how today’s deal works: Get a free full sized Organic Facial Moisture Concentrate ($36 value) with any order over $35 (in other words, you’re essentially getting half off the order!). All you have to do is enter the PROMO CODE FRIDAYDEAL at checkout. And if your order is above $50, you’ll get FREE SHIPPING too. A merrymerry to you!

Special note: This deal ends Sunday night at midnight PST, so don’t delay.

What’s the Moisture Concentrate all about? Well, it’s a super-rich blend of skin-loving oils, combined with powerful antioxidants and calming actives like chamomile and calendula. It’s the perfect antidote to dry winter skin, but also works as a multi-tasker on split ends, hands, elbows, cuticles or any other weather-worn part of you that needs a little extra love.

Here’s the full ingredient list:

Organic plant oils of helianthus annuus (sunflower) oil*, olea europaea (olive) fruit oil*, simmondsia chinensis (jojoba) oil*, linumusitatissimum (linseed) seed oil*, borago officinali (borage) seed oil*, oenothera biennis (evening primrose) oil*, vaccinium macrocarpon (cranberry) seed oil*, vinis vitifera (grape) seed oil*, organic botanical extracts of calendula officinalis flower*, chamomilla recutita (matricaria) flower*, daucus carota sativa (carrot) seed*, helichrysum stoechas (everlasting)* & melissa officinalis (lemon balm)*, tocopherol, pelargonium graveolens (geranium)* & citrus aurantium (petitgrain)* essential oils.

We’ve  always praised Juice for being the kind of clean brand that is also great for clean-beauty newbies. It has a high-end, but still totally accessible vibe that we love, and so many women (including ourselves) have turned to it as a transition line from more mainstream ones. In other words—while we still love the products now—it’s also the perfect prezzy for friends and loved ones we’re looking to convert to the movement this holiday. So let’s take advantage!

Happy shopping, and have a wonderful early winter weekend.

Your ever-devoted clean girls,

S&A

OK, so who’s been here: You all of a sudden have plans but you don’t feel quite day-to-night (or gym-to-out) equipped because, well, it’s Sunday and you didn’t think you’d need your red lipstick or whatever, and even though you don’t really wear perfume, you feel you could use a little pick-me-up but you don’t have that on you, either? So you book it to Sephora and wait semi-patiently while other girls in your predicament use those badly lit mirrors to apply germ-filled samples to their day faces until they feel going-out ready? Then, when it’s finally your turn, you fold over a cotton pad and think “This will double as a blush brush, sure!” and you smear some pink on your cheeks, and it looks ridiculous, and you are reminded, again, why this is never a good idea?

(Please don’t tell me I am alone here.)

Anyway, here’s a much better idea: Go to Whole Foods.

When I stopped using conventional cosmetics, I also stopped doing last-minute makeup application at Sephora. But I also thought I’d never find a replacement since there’s no natural-beauty chain (yet) and the very few places in New York where you can buy clean cosmetics in person aren’t centrally located, making the dash-in-dash-out move impossible.

Yesterday I’d gone to my usual Sunday morning class and showered at the studio, leaving me with soaking wet hair, no conditioner, no makeup, and a lunch (and then museum) date. It wasn’t like I was going out-out, but I was feeling a little blah and hadn’t brought anything with me except—and this was an accident—bright red lipstick and—and this wasn’t an accident—my new Lotus Wei aromatherapy sample.

I had a bit of time to kill so I went into Whole Foods to browse when it occurred to me: Whole Body! I love Whole Body! Some Whole Body sections are amazing (looking at you, Columbus Circle) but they’re all good enough if you ask me. I am wild about their new organics standards, they carry a great selection of many of my favorite lines, they have samples out of everything under the sun, including makeup, and the people who work the section are nice about letting you try anything you want. Genius. [UPDATE: I heard it from the horse's mouth that for anything in Whole Body, if there isn't a sample available you can just ask and they'll open one for you!]

So I popped into my regular, at Union Square, and when no one was looking, I sprayed my face with an Evan Healy toner, moisturized with some Juice Beauty, sprayed some John Masters Organics Sea Salt Spray in my hair, dabbed some vanilla on my wrists, and played with a just-opened sample of Dr. Hauschka blush, which I ended up buying because I liked it so much.

Now, I’m generally wary of store samples for obvious reasons (germs, and it’s weirdly embarrassing to apply things in public), but sometimes it’s just what you need. If nothing else, primping a little bit can change your mindset from “It’s downward-dog time” to “It’s interact-with-human-beings time” and you don’t need makeup to do this; I was wearing basically none at all. But the mere act of spraying something on my hair made me feel ready for anything. It’s pretty cool how these things work.

But back to the headline: We want to know from you: Where do you buy your natural makeup? Online? In person? If so where? Are you lucky enough to have an actual physical STORE in your town, like Los Angeles with our beloved Evolue?

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