Style + Beauty

awesome product alert: los angeles-based skincare line beautycounter

October 2, 2013

When we went backpacking for a year, one of my main concerns was that I wouldn’t be able to slather on body lotion post shower. I’m a skincare freak. I’m obsessed with face scrubs, diligent about washing my face before bed and you’d better believe SPF is no joke to me.

Remember how I recently found out my beloved Neutrogena Sheer-Touch isn’t as great as we think? And remember how I recently blogged about wanting to use a skincare routine to achieve some calm? Around the same time, I also heard about Beautycounter, a new L.A.-based skincare brand that’s committed to responsible, healthy and safe skincare products. Here’s a little food for thought: 1300 chemical ingredients are banned in the European Union; 11 are banned in the U.S.

For their part, Beautycounter prescribes to a Never List, a lengthy list of harmful ingredients that you’ll never find in their products — obvious ones like parabens and phthalates as well as not-so-obvious ingredients like mineral oil, which sounds totally fine, right? (Mineral oil is actually a by-product of petroleum distillation that can cause contact dermatitis. Yikes!)

Here are a few of my favorite (Beauty Counter) things:

Lustro Face Oil 2 – Jasmine. I love putting a couple drops on my dry areas (forehead and around the my mouth) before bed. This jasmine scent is the closest thing to the smell of jasmine in India, and I’m so obsessed with these oils that I usually make sure it’s the last thing I do before bed so I can go to sleep with the scent on my hands. (Like two nights ago when I asked Eaman to take the puppy out to the bathroom so I wouldn’t have to wash away the fragrance.)

Gentle Exfoliator Polishing Cream. What’s interesting is that when I compared this scrub to one from a natural foods store I have at home, all the safe ingredients matched up. What was different was the feel. The old scrub was rough and frankly, smells really bad now after a few months, while Beautycounter’s is silky smooth. It’s the coconut oil!

Glow Sugar Scrub. Do you like Fresh’s Brown Sugar Body Polish? Because I’m obsessed with it. But it’s expensive and not a practical purchase for me right now. So I did a happy dance when I saw that Beautycounter has a body scrub inspired by Fresh’s — for nearly half the price! It leaves just the right amount of oil (and hydration) and no other scrub since Fresh’s has left my skin so smooth. It was much needed to get all the dust and sunscreen (and dead skin) off after a day of hiking.

Other favorites include the Hydrate Everyday Body Lotion (coconut oil makes this rich but not heavy), Routine Clean Cream Cleanser (the first time I’ve approved of a face wash other than my beloved Clearasil), Every Night PM Hydrating Cream (coconut oil, aloe and green tea) and the Rosewater Uplifting Spray (a savior for my 3pm workday lulls).

The packaging is wonderfully minimalist and stylish, too, which is typically hard to find in the world of natural products. I mean, they even do a little pop of red inside the box!

I love the honesty, commitment and sense of responsibility behind the company, but I also love that the line has re-energized my skincare routine and given me a great way to wind down at night. Yes, I still check Instagram before bed, but at least now my smartphone-swiping fingers smell like jasmine.

Beautycounter sent me products to test for this post. I was not compensated, but I do earn a percentage if you click through to buy the products. All opinions, as always, are my own. I share only the stuff that I’d share with my best friends.

First two pictures via Beautycounter.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

* Copy This Password *

* Type Or Paste Password Here *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>