B00AFU6252 EBOK by Jessica Alba

alternatives for the chemicals we know may work great—but aren’t so great for our health.

The Honest Makeup Bag
    N OW THE FUN PART ! I’m going to give you all my beauty secrets and tips to help you achieve your own version of Honest Beauty.
    The good news is that a lot of beauty brands are starting to get there. I’ve seen a huge improvement in the quality of products offered even in just the past couple of years. In this chapter, I’m going to share some of my favorites so you can make over your makeup bag. And Lauren and I have also downloaded our best beauty tips and tricks to help you find the magic—and maybe even a bit of that make-believe!—in makeup.
    Note
: The vast majority of the products that I use are free of all the Dishonest Ingredients I warn you about throughout this chapter and have a safety score of 0 to 2 (the best you can get) in the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetics Database ( ewg.org/skindeep ) . Remember, Skin Deep is awesome but not perfect—it can’t stay on top of every new product, particularly some of the great brands I’ve discovered on my travels in France or Japan—countries with much stricter safety standards than the USA. But I’ve consulted environmental health experts like Christopher Gavigan to make sure they meet our safety criteria.
    Honest Beauty Is . . .
Clean
Fresh
Uncomplicated
Healthy
Washing your face before bed—most nights
Sun kissed (with SPF)
Smiling
Kid friendly
Sexy
Casual
A little shimmer
    Honest Beauty Isn’t . . .
Fake
Worrying about crow’s-feet
Fretting over every tiny blemish
Complicated
Untouchable
Unkissable
A lot of work
Formal
Serious
Toxic

Pure & Simple: Base Layer
    T HIS IS THE makeup that has the most contact with your skin and (in a perfect world, anyway!) stays put all day long. Make it a priority to choose the cleanest products possible to protect your pores and give you a safe, healthy glow. A great base layer minimizes flaws, but it’s really about letting your true beauty shine through.
TINTED MOISTURIZER
    Most days, I have no desire to do the full primer-foundation-concealer routine, but I still need a little something. Enter tinted moisturizer: It evens things out and makes you all glowy but takes 2 seconds to apply.
    I’m particularly fond of tinted moisturizers with SPF because it helps me do even more product multitasking; 100% Pure makes a nice one. And I really love Hourglass Illusion Tinted Moisturizer with SPF; it’s a bit pricier, but you cannot beat how well it glides on and never cakes.
    Whatever moisturizer you use, let it sit and absorb for a few minutes before you layer on more cosmetics. This gives your skin a chance to drink it in and get thoroughly hydrated, which makes everything else easier to apply. And always insist that your moisturizer (and all your cosmetics) be synthetic-fragrance free. It’s a key way to avoid phthalates , since this product sits on your face all day, and you want to minimize chemical absorption into your bloodstream.
    DIY TINTED MOISTURIZER
    Mix a pea-size blob of your suncreen with a pea-size blob of your base to get a homemade tinted moisturizer with SPF.
PRIMER
    Primer is one of those products that I thought was a total waste of time—until a makeup artist made me try it. Then I realized how completely poreless it makes your face—and how much longer the rest of your makeup stays in place. I was a convert! Think of it as a 3-second investment in the rest of your face. (Plus you’ll break out less because it prevents everything else from gunking up your pores.)
    I tend to skip primer if I’m just using tinted moisturizer, but if you’re very oily or have the kind of skin where everything seems to wear off by noon, primer can help make it last. Otherwise, use it after moisturizer but before foundation. You might also want to look for a mattifying primer (Hourglass and Korres make nice ones), but don’t over-matte yourself—I like a little shine because I