Our Experience with Clean Beauty
Sadly, like everyone we spend wayyy too long on Instagram just scrolling. What starts off as a quick check-in about what your girlfriends are doing, quickly turns into hours of mindless flicking down the rabbit hole that is our timeline. We follow celebrities, food accounts and of course none other than Style Sonata. For some of us it's an addiction, for others a business and for most of us we actually acquire useful information. Information such as politics, social issues and celebrity gossip. You may be surprised to know (not really) that we find a lot of interesting content about beauty and fashion. Ever since Instagram allowed ads to involuntarily pop-up on our feed we’ve been getting a lot of new inspirational intel when it comes to beauty. Like the rest of you we click, we skim and maybe we buy. In this case we have been seeing many women of all skin tones, all ages using this clean beauty line called ILIA.
I feel beautiful without makeup on, but when I do put makeup on, it just gives me this extra pop.”
– Cardi B
We just had to try it for ourselves and did we go all out. We couldn’t get to nordstrom.com fast enough to purchase four items for our own use and then of course to tell you all about them. Let’s start with what ILIA is most known for and that’s their Super Serum Skin Tint. The bottle comes with a built in dropper that you can apply directly to your face or into your hands to warm and massage the serum. The serum itself is tinted and provides sheer but buildable coverage. This product comes in 18 shades and has ingredients like hyaluronic acids, and plant based Squalene. Basically it contains all that you need to blur wrinkles and leaves your skin looking like your skin but better. Oh, and did we mention its SPF 40, fragrance free, hydrating AND it plumps your skin. This year alone it has won six awards for best beauty product. When we apply this to our face we feel like our skin can still breathe, it's as if it works with your natural skin composition to only elevate it. One note we do have is that when you first apply it to your skin it comes out very pale, almost pale, but give it about 30 seconds and it will adjust to the proper shade.
“Foundation should unify tone, but it shouldn’t take away the individuality of the skin.”
– François Nars
The other three products we tried were two eyeliners and a bronzer. Now, clean beauty is a hot topic right now. There are new brands that are clean beauty and existing ones that are trying to incorporate clean ingredients into their products. If you’re like us, and we do feel a bit of guilt admitting this but a part of us thought, does clean beauty actually get the job done?As if we thought just like with clean, sustainable luxury brands, is it still high fashion? ILIA is better. We purchased both eyeliners in Twilight and Dusk. The first is a black gel liner and the second is a darker brown shade but both come with a sharpener and both deliver a rich color. What’s mentionable about the eyeliners is that they are carbon free, water resistant and easy to buff out for a smokey appearance. During these last few days of summer, we’ve been prone to the effect of the heat, meaning our makeup has been victim to bleeding but please trust us when we say neither of these liners are going anywhere once you apply them. It's almost like whatever non-clean beauty brands are doing are doing it wrong because ILIA’s liners stay put. Our final item, save the best for last of course, is the Nightlite Bronzing Powder. It’s a fine powder bronzer that is effortless to apply and has a silky finish. We like to apply this powder under our cheekbones for a contour effect and also dust it all over for a sunkissed look. With the Nightlite bronzer you can literally never apply too much and you will always have a lit-from-with glow. It’s extremely easy to apply, especially with the built-in mirror and the natural bronze complements the Super Serum Sun Tint and eyeliners making a complete, ready-to-go look that only took minutes to put together.
If we had any reservations about trying clean beauty products, they’re out the window. Using these products has made our skin feel healthy and look healthy as well. Any age, any skin tone, any woman will use these products and feel beautiful. ILIA also carries lip tints, all-in-one cheek tints as well as concealers and moisturizers, all of which we can’t wait to get our hands on next. Of course, it's easy to get the look because you can find all of the products in one place, nordstrom.com where they offer free shipping to anywhere in the U.S. So go, go now and experience clean beauty for yourself and if you happen to order any of the other ILIA products, lets us know your thoughts and beauty tips.
xo
SS
Images courtesy: ILIA
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