Where do you even begin when switching from your “regular” makeup brands to natural makeup? Will natural makeup work well? Is it way more expensive? Will you have to try a bunch of different brands to find the right ones? How do you define “regular” and “less toxic” makeup?

I set out on a project to answer these questions for myself, and I’m posting them here in hopes that the answers will be useful for you, too!

My Answers:

Where do you even begin when switching from your “regular” makeup brands to natural makeup?

I started by making a list of everything I use on a daily basis: eye primer, light shadow, black liquid liner, dark accent shadow, white pencil liner, mascara, concealer. This is what I need for my “everyday” look, and I set out to find replacements for these items (but not necessarily exact matches). I still have a drawer of special occasion makeup that I’m keeping on hand for those days when I want purple accent liner.

My goal with this makeup project—and with this whole blog!—is to provide reasonable ways to reduce toxins in daily life. I might wear special occasion makeup a few times a year, so it’s not worth it to me to throw away my glitter shadow and bright liners, just to replace them with natural alternatives that won’t get used very often.

Will natural makeup work well?

I dreaded switching over to natural makeup for years, because I assumed that natural makeup simply would not work as well. A few years ago, I tried one natural mascara that I HATED, and I took that as foreshadowing that finding natural makeup would be a major project and that I’d have to buy many versions of my products to find reasonable replacements.

This turned out not to be the case at all! I found two widely available brands: Mineral Fusion and Zuzu Luxe at my local Natural Grocers and was able to replace pretty much all my daily makeup products with just those two brands. There are a few things I don’t like about some products—more on that in the individual product posts in this series.

Is it way more expensive?

Nope, not in my experience. As you read on, you’ll see I wasn’t using any high-end designer makeup in my daily routine to begin with, and the less toxic products I’m recommending as replacements are roughly equivalent price-wise.

Will you have to try a bunch of different brands to find the right ones?

Maybe for a few products (looking at you, mascara and liquid eye liner) but some of the products I tried were a great match right away.

How do you define “regular” and “less toxic” makeup?

I used the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Database to research and compare my current brands with less toxic brands. If you see colored numbers on the product images below, that tells you the EWG hazard score rating.

Let’s Dive In!

I mentioned that Step 1 was identifying everything I used in my daily look. In the following posts, you can see what I used to use, followed by the less-toxic alternative I’m using now.