Glow Up: Cleaning Up

Change isn’t necessarily an easy path to take. If it were, people would be changing aspects of their lives all the time. Physical, mental, emotional, financial, etc. – I’ve been trying to make changes in my life for years now. This year, I want to stop saying “I’ll change” and actually do it.

Number 1: Go cruelty-free and clean.

Now let me clarify what I mean by going cruelty-free and clean. For me, right now I want to start by taking small steps. Beauty wise, I will be shopping from cruelty-free brands – if they end up being vegan then that’s even better. Skincare, I want to be more in-depth and go with brands that are cruelty-free and clean.

 I’ve tried to make this change for a good two years now and I always made one excuse or another for still supporting brands that don’t meet those standards. I would say things like: “I’ve looked everywhere for a good dupe and it just doesn’t exist” or “I know this product works for my skin and doesn’t give me any bad reactions.” Those were just poor excuses. At the end of the day, I just didn’t want to put in the effort to look for options and that’s the sad thing - there are plenty of options.

Nowadays it is so easy to find out what brands are and aren’t cruelty-free. Even determining which brands are clean has become easier. You can walk into a Sephora and just look for those little green stickers with a check mark and bam – you’ve found a clean brand. There’s no excuse anymore to not make the change.

I’m not saying it’s going to be an easy transition. It’s going to take research and lots of decisions on how I want to approach things. Something I’ve been struggling with recently is the fact that a brand can be cruelty-free, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that their parent company is as well. For example, TATCHA is both cruelty-free and clean, however, their parent company, Unilver, isn’t. I know that some people may argue to not use the products because Unilver isn’t cruelty-free. I don’t know if I necessarily agree though. TATCHA may be owned by them, but they have stuck to their values and presently maintain their cruelty-free and clean brand status. Given this I have decided to keep using their products. Should their stance change as a result of Unilver being their “parent,” I will sadly have to part ways.

One of the biggest steps I’ve taken on this journey so far is cleaning out my vanity. Over the past 2-3 months I’ve been slowly going through my makeup and skincare products and getting rid of anything that wasn’t cruelty-free. If the products were brand new or barely used, I offered them to my sister-in-law. Everything else I tossed out. I realize now, I should have tried to clean out the product containers to recycle – that’s a lesson learned for the future with unused or expired products. Since I’ve started making the conscious switch, my makeup collection has seen a drastic cleanout. I went from 10 drawers full of products to only three.

I do have to say that it has personally been easier for me to make the switch to cruelty-free makeup brands than it has been to go cruelty-free and clean for skincare. I feel I got lucky in the makeup department as a lot of the main brands I shop with are already cruelty-free – i.e. Colourpop and Hourglass. Skincare wise, the transition to clean brands has been a tiny bit more difficult. Yes, Sephora makes it easy to shop, but it hasn’t been easy for me to let go of one of my favorite brands – LANEIGE. I’ve been using them since my college days and they’re one of my tried and true go-to brands for my skincare needs. The Lip Sleeping Mask has been my savior during the cold months and now they have the daytime version – Lip Glowy Balm – and I love it just as much. Thankfully, TATCHA recently launched their own lip mask – The Kissu Lip Mask – so here’s to hoping this will help soften my breakup with LANEIGE.

They same “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Well going cruelty-free and clean isn’t going to happen overnight either. This is going to be a journey, but it’s one I’m willing to take.