Sustainable beauty spring releases – the lazy girl’s guide

What’s going on with the 2020 sustainable beauty spring releases? Let’s check them out.

Different to the big players in the beauty business, ‘green’ makeup brands usually don’t churn out new products and collections every week. Looking at makeup and skincare over-consumerism or ‘fast beauty’ (Glamour) as it is dubbed nowadays, I applaud that – a more mindful approach to shopping for beauty is very much aligned with my personal taste.

Still, ‘green’ (lacking a better word, we all know that it’s basically an empty marketing term – I’ll define my approach below) beauty flies under the radar for most beauty junkies. I want to change that, and want to shine a light on all that’s new in the ‘green’ beauty landscape, like I’m doing with my my OG ‘lazy girl guides’ to seasonal makeup collections.

Sustainable beauty spring releases

As with the ‘lazy girl’s guide’, I’m concentrating on brands that are available to most beauty junkies. I’m also choosing brands that are mostly sustainable in their approach, even if they sometimes not gel with my personal philosophy. (Stop with the scare tactics in marketing, guys.) But: I feel that we should have choices, and sustainable choices to boot, when we’re looking for makeup.

Ilia: new packaging, new foundation

Ilia, by now, has turned into a fully rounded makeup brand (they’ve been around since 2011). They offer every makeup product imaginable, from foundation to highlighter to eyeshadows to mascara. They just revamped their packaging which now is colour coded (Soft Brick: lips; Lavender: eyes; Blush: complexion or multi-use) and sports sleek white lettering.

Super Serum Skin Tint SPF40

Their new spring release is a serum-slash-foundation-slash-SPF, and sadly only available in the US (they say ‘due to SPF regulations’ which I don’t understand. Zinc Oxide is, after all, allowed in the EU up to 25% in sunscreen – here it’s 12,5%.) The line boasts 18 different shades, and won’t have a white cast due to the tint. Formulation-wise, it includes A LOT of oils and emollients, so combo skin and oily people, beware. Also: remember that you need around 1,4g of sunscreen to reach the advertised SPF. It could be wise to layer another sunscreen under the Super Serum Skin Tint SPF40.

Kosas: Revealer Concealer

Kosas is the hippest ‘clean’ brand in town (OF COURSE it hails from L.A.), formulating products without (deep breath) Parabens, Phthalates, BHA/BHT, Mineral Oil, Propylene Glycol, Polyethylene Glycol, Phenoxyethanol, Petrolatum, Vitamin A, retinoids, or retinoid derivatives. (I read an interview with founder Sheena Yaitanes who said that retinol has made the biggest difference in her skincare, so: apparently, we all contain multitudes and savvy founders give their customers what they want).

Revealer Concealer

Nevertheless, I’ve a soft spot for the inclusive brand: look at the site for their new Revealer Concealer and you’ll see models of all ages and skintones. Combo products (that combine skincare properties with makeup) are hot this spring: The Revealer Concealer comes not only in 16 shades, but also is supposed to be an ‘eye cream, spot treatment and concealer all in one product’. It comes with the tried and true formula of caffeine, peptides and hyaluronic acid (which is nothing new in neither eye products nor concealers). I’d try it!

RMS Beauty: luminizer minis

RMS Beauty’s approach to beauty is minimal and focuses on ‘enhancing’ and a less-is-more philosophy that reaches to their packaging as well: it’s all recyclable or reusable.

This spring, it’s all about the glow: Offerings consists of a face & body luminizing powder, a luminizer duo (a cream and powder duo in the palest of champagne) and a cream highlighter quad with their three bestselling cream highlighters and one bronzer. I’m not super into cream highlighters, and these offerings seem awfully light to work for darker skintones. Also, they’re all oil-based: a nightmare for this sticky-skin phobe!

lilah b.: tinted lip oil

This luxe brand wormed itself into my cold, cold heart because of the sleek pebble-shaped packaging. I KNOW. Still, its founder set out to create multi-purpose products to minimise the need for having tons of products around, with a stress on mindfully choosing what works for you.

Their new Lovingly Lip Tinted Lip Oil is  ‘an oil-based treatment with the shine and pigment of a gloss’. It comes in six shades (true, a bit of a snooze, but at the same time VERY wearable for all skintones), looks very luxurious (the price does mirror that) and, yes, covetable.

Rituel de Fille: Moon Drops

This young brand popped up on a lot of beauty junkies’ radar when they launched a black highlighter in 2017. The founders ‘want to highlight the “magical” side of earth-derived ingredients and the ritualistic, ceremonial power of pigment’: it’s basically a mineral makeup brand, upped to the max. All their ingredients are sustainably sourced. Their Instagram is a treasure trove of creative, colourful makeup looks that I love to look at.

Next to their core collection of loose pigments and cream products, they do monthly ‘moon drops’: small launches of products that can be anything. This month, it was actually a blood-red face oil. Get on their newsletter to be notified of new product launches – whatever they are, they’re never boring. Thankfully. 

What do you think of the 2020 sustainable beauty spring releases? Did I miss anything?