Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Vegan Guide To Sephora, part one

The whole guide is coming soon, I swear! This is a personal pet project of mine, born out of the fact that I totally fracking love Sephora. I am such a girl.

I recently 100% veganized all of my cosmetics at Sephora and it was a very interesting experience. It also inadvertently ended up being an educational experience for me as well as for the awesome sales associate who was helping me (ironically also named Maria: we are legion, and we are taking over the world, bitches!). She didn't know what carmine was and looked like she was about to hurl when I told her that it was red pigment from crushed up beetles. Oh, and did I mention the potential neurotoxin part? I had heard this when I worked for Whole Foods, but I haven't found any information yet to substantiate that claim. I'm working on it, though! Research Science Girl to the rescue... anyway, Maria was awesome and I made sure to compliment her to Sephora. I am a firm believer in the Veganic Pay It Forward: if someone goes way out of their way to really help me find vegan stuff or food, I write a glowing letter to the company ASAP and mention the person by name. I love you, fellow vegans, but some of us are (for lack of a more delicate term) assholes. I've certainly been a hysterical vegan asshole in the past when I was frantically looking for vegan eats and there was nothing to be found but iceberg lettuce and blank stares of incomprehension. It's my karmic duty now to be the most joyful, kind, positive vegan I can be every single day. And it's certainly a hell of a lot more fun than being a dour, angry, jaded, judgemental bizatch.

But I digress. For now, the best bets are Urban Decay, Tarte, a foundation by DuWop and one lip balm by The Balm. I also know for sure that Fresh, Too Faced and LaVanilla also do not test on animals, nor does Benefit (I wrote and asked). I am working on getting vegan listings from them as well as other companies. I also wrote Sephora and asked if they had a list of cruelty-free companies/vegan products. Pretty sure they don't have it, but at least I can let them know that people are interested!

Urban Decay has a handy printable shopping list here:
http://www.urbandecay.com/vegan.cfm

And Tarte does, too---they actually certified their products with PETA (oooh!):
http://tartecosmetics.com/tarte-shop-vegan-cosmetics

Here is a link to The Balm's vegan lip treatment; not only is it vegan, but all proceeds are donated to pug rescue:
http://www.thebalm.com/makeup/rescue.htm

DuWop carries a really nice vegan anti-aging foundation (ahem!). Yeah, I need it. Being over 40 ain't pretty, even if you are vegan and sucking down green smoothies like they're the new crack:
http://shop.duwop.com/foundationofyouth-1.aspx

Too Faced has lovely "teddy bear hair" cruelty-free, synthetic brushes:
http://www.toofaced.com/accessories/makeupbrushes.aspx


That's it for now, but I will post more once I get some further information from the companies I wrote to. Please comment if you have any additional sneaky insider vegan Sephora tips or information!

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