5 Natural Beauty Brands You Can Find at Target

I’m always trying to drive home the fact that green beauty is for everyone. Cleaner and more ethical practices can be easily integrated into your existing routine. A vast variety of brands and products are available to us that doesn’t sacrifice quality or cost.

Last week, I came across an interview with beauty and wellness blogger Geri Hirsch on WhoWhatWear. She shares her clean beauty routine and glimpses of the products she uses. I couldn’t help but to notice the mentioning of her $42 One Love Organics makeup remover and $22 Corpus natural deodorant.

I think it’s wonderful that she can use her success to support these amazing brands and products. But for a regular “broke college-girl” like me, I need options that can fit my ethics and my budget. Which is where our savior Target comes in.

Target is one of my go-to destinations for natural beauty. You can even find a designated natural beauty category while shopping online at Target.com. On my latest Target run, I made sure to check out some of the items stocked along their beauty aisle.

Here are 5 natural beauty brands you can find at your local Target.

Burt’s Bees

Burt’s Bees Greater Good purpose focuses on creating products and running a business that is better for people, themselves, and the environment. Their commitment to customers and the planet is shown through their natural and responsible business model. Additionally, I’ve been a longtime user of their lip balm before I was even aware of their clean and sustainability efforts.

Yes To

Known for their skincare products, Yes To prides themselves on delivering natural and effective products “free of the nasties and filled with the goodies.” From face masks to cleansers, the ingredients and packaging allude to the goodness of fruits and veggies that go into the formulations. Yes To is transparent with stating their ingredients are only at least 95% natural, but the company also runs their “Yes to Happiness” mission to empower like-minded women in their communities with opportunities. That’s worth a mention on this list.

Love Beauty and Planet

One of the newer brands I’ve seen at Target, Love Beauty and Planet first caught my eye with their down-to-earth approach in an advertisement on YouTube. Their brand has a wide array of hair and body products in several delightful scents. Aside from the clean and sustainably-sourced ingredients used, Love Beauty and Planet, as their name would suggest, gives love back to the planet by packaging their products with a conscious intent to reduce their carbon footprint. Once my current shampoo runs out (and I recycle it!), I will be snatching up one from them.

Pacifica

This 100% vegan and cruelty-free brand has bodycare, skincare, and cosmetics. After you finish using up the product, you can earn rewards for participating in their recycling program, partnered with Preserve. Just a personal plus, I’ve always been a big fan of their fun and tropical-esque packaging.

Method

This brand may be a bit surprising to include on this list, but Method sells body washes too, not just home cleaning products. Regardless, all their products are “planet-friendly” and their company and operation initiatives makes them standout. Method is animal-friendly, sustainability-focused, socially responsible, and climate-conscious, just to name a few.

Have you tried anything you love from these brands? Let me know in the comments.

No Room for Animals: Cruelty-free and Vegan Beauty

I love beauty products and I love animals (I’m a proud cat mom of two) but I do not want beauty products and animals to have anything to do with the other!

When I mention “ethical” beauty on Green Vanity’s blog, I’m sure many of you have thought about ethical practices outside of sustainability and environmental concerns. There’s also the consideration for ethical practices concerning ingredients and product testing.

3229503641_73451ba405_o — *Photo courtesy of Nancy E. de Souza via Flickr Creative Commons*

The beauty world is increasingly becoming cruelty-free and pushing to end animal testing.

Just last week, it was big news in beauty. Australia’s Senate passed a bill banning cosmetic animal testing after The Body Shop Australia and Cruelty-Free International launched a partnered campaign that garnered 8.3 million signatures to end cosmetic animal testing.

When the whole movement for clean beauty first started as a trend, no one could imagine that it would become close to a new industry standard. The desire for safer, cruelty-free, and natural products will only increase in demand as particularly Millennial and Gen Z consumers expect brands and products to meet those standards. Beyond a marketing tactic, brands are either meeting or setting their own company standards to deliver the quality products consumers want. But what exactly is cruelty-free, or even vegan makeup?

Well, let’s look at the difference between cruelty-free and vegan cosmetics. Cruelty-free means that the testing of products or ingredients has not at any point been used on animals. It’s important to keep the whole process in mind when assessing if a brand is cruelty-free, for they may not test the final product on animals, but the separate ingredients used may have been tested on animals by a third-party supplier.

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The term vegan comes at no surprise to apply to more than just the food on our plates but to the products on our face. A vegan product does not contain any animal ingredient or animal-derived ingredient. There are plenty of common cosmetic ingredients that one would not immediately suspect to be non-vegan. For example, beeswax can be obviously not vegan. However, lanolin, used in many lip products as an emollient, is derived from sheep’s wool and would not be considered vegan as well.

Due to the difference in meaning, be aware that cruelty-free products are not always vegan, and vegan products are not always cruelty-free.

In fact, there’s such a thing as Halal beauty. Particularly popular in majority Muslim Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, beauty brands are looking to achieve Halal certification to appeal to their Muslim consumers. Traditionally meaning meat prepared in accordance with Muslim religious law, Halal cosmetics must be free of several animal components and be cruelty-free. This would naturally appeal to certain vegan and ethically concerned beauty consumers, making Halal beauty an excellent choice beyond the consumer’s religious background.

Resources

While you can find hundreds of product recommendations online, for anything from cruelty-free or vegan foundations and red lipsticks to deodorant, knowing what to look for can help when you’re browsing the beauty shelves on your own.

You can discover whether any brand is cruelty-free by checking if they’re Leaping Bunny certified.

Additionally, familiarize yourself with animal-derived common cosmetic ingredients and potentially seek out products that use vegan alternatives.

Do it for yourself and for our furry friends! Let me know in the comments your favorite cruelty-free brand.

Our Commitment to Sustainable Beauty Should be a “Package” Deal

After hours of research, scouring the raves and reviews, you rejoice in finding your new go-to organic lotion. Everything that went into the bottle meets an ethical standard that is both good for you and good for the planet.

Wait a second… what about the bottle itself?

If your goal is to become a user of more ethical and sustainable beauty, don’t forget about the packaging that holds your creams and cosmetics!

33622201185_263438cd38_o — Plastic packaging is rampant in the beauty industry. *Photo courtesy of Karolina Mis via Flickr Creative Commons*.

Steps have been taken to reduce the plastic pollution plaguing the beauty and personal care industry. It started with banning microbeads in exfoliating scrubs, but the plastic that doesn’t go down the drains and into our oceans will usually end up in a landfill. I’m talking about the single-use plastic packaging our beauty products come in.

Don’t be fooled; other industries are making a big impact on the environment due to packaging waste as well. Think about the endless amount of packaging that comes with meal delivery kits or the tons of cardboard online retailers use to ship their goods around the world. But how significant is the issue within the beauty sector alone?

The global cosmetics industry alone produces over 120 billion units of packaging every year. Nearly 18 million acres of forest are lost each year due to the manufacturing of cardboard that will hold the makeup jars and bottles. At this rate, we can expect 12 billion tons of plastic in landfills by the year 2050.

Certainly, there are brands that have begun to incorporate elements to help combat the environmental crisis. They repackage their products with recycled materials and distribute goods with sustainably-sourced papers. Moreover, some beauty companies have pledged actionable initiatives that give back to the planet, such as working with organizations to aid in reforestation or clean-up projects.

10176903046_b00f70fee9_o — Beauty brand Aveda provides recycling guidelines for its products. *Photo courtesy of Mainstream via Flickr Creative Commons*.

Beauty brands recognize the significance of the packaging problem to their business, to their customers, and to our planet. Just see what L’Oréal Paris has to say about sustainable packaging.

Now, how can we do our part to remedy the problem without giving up on the products we love?

I’ll break it down into those familiar three R’s: reduce, reuse, and recycle!

Reduce

Arguably, reducing overall consumption is the most critical step when faced with this issue. Eliminate the problem -the waste- by not creating it in the first place. Less really can be more.

Choose products that have reduced lighter packaging, which saves both you and the company money in manufacturing it.

Or, forgo packaging altogether. At least, that’s what Lush is trying to give – or should I say, not to give? – their customers with the newly opened Lush Naked Shop.

You can further reduce your consumption by making your own beauty products at home.

Reuse

Those used up jars and bottles don’t need to be single use.

Get crafty and repurpose those cosmetic containers!

If you follow my previous suggestion of making your own beauty products, now you can reuse a container to store your own DIY concoction.

Larger jars can be used to organize your brushes, or even be used as a small glass planter. Getting creative with all the possibilities is part of the fun.

Plus, you already spent your money on those pretty bottles. Why not keep them around but give it a new life?

Recycle

You will be rewarded for your efforts. Really, several brands like Lush and M.A.C. Cosmetics offer a recycle and reward program. Trading in your empty containers with the store means they can properly recycle their packaging and offer you freebies or loyalty points.

Additionally, it doesn’t hurt to familiarize yourself with proper recycling methods and practices.

A plastic bottle can be recycled, but maybe not the pump lid attached. Aerosol cans or squeezable tubes may have restrictions in your area.

And with that, I’ll set you all off with simple steps we can all take to manage this beauty packaging problem. Let me know in the comments how you plan to reduce, reuse, or recycle.