Best Conscious Makeup Buys
Best Makeup Tool
Best Primer
Innbeauty Project Face Glaze
Best Foundation
Exa High Fidelity Foundation
Epic glow, meet your maker: the Innbeauty Project Face Glaze ($24) is a multitasking glistening cream you can use however, whenever you'd like to brighten things up. We love it as a makeup primer, but you can also mix it in with your foundation or eye cream or use it as a stand-alone highlighter to give your look the prettiest sheen. Plus, the brand partners with rePurpose Global, so for every one product it sells, it funds the removal of three (!) units of plastic from landfills, waterways, and marine environments to be recycled — making it completely plastic-negative.
You know those tinted moisturizers you love for their skin-like finish, easy blending, and hydrating feel but wish they had just
a smidge more coverage? You get that
with the Exa High Fidelity Foundation ($38). This medium-coverage formula
has everything you love about those moisturizers but will cover up any
redness or dark spots with aplomb.
Plus, with 43 shades — the most inclusive liquid-foundation shade range for a
clean beauty brand — you're pretty much guaranteed to find your perfect match.
Best Brow Product
Kosas Air Brow Tinted Clean Volumizing Eyebrow Gel
We used to think achieving brows like Lily Collins's would require an arsenal of products — then we tried the Kosas Air Brow Tinted Clean Volumizing Eyebrow Gel ($22). The mousse-like gel has a fluffy wand that applies the perfect amount of product and locks hairs in place without a goopy mess or flakes. It's all possible thanks to its biodegradable plant fibers (most gels use a synthetic plastic version) and conditioning ingredients like castor oil, vitamins, and peptides.
Best Lip Product
Merit Shade Slick Tinted Lip Oil
The Merit Shade Slick Tinted Lip Oil ($24) deserves a spot in your makeup bag . . . and also your purse, your car, your desk — you get the point. The soft tint and glossy finish are ultra flattering, and the moisturizing feel goes unmatched. It's packed with oils (rosehip, grapeseed, jojoba); shea butter; and omega-3, -6, and -9 fatty acids; it's also vegan, and cruelty-free; and formulated without 1,328 potentially harmful ingredients, according to the European Union.
Beautyblender Bio Pure
Makeup Sponge
Beautyblender changed the makeup game back in 2007, and since we are completely unwilling to know life without the seamless finish and fast application it affords us, we're beyond excited to see a more sustainable option. Unlike the original sponge, the Beautyblender Bio Pure Makeup Sponge ($15) is made of a 60-percent plant base of renewable sugarcane — but other than the green color, we promise you can't even tell a difference.
Best Palette
PYT Beauty The Upcycle
Eyeshadow Palette
Here's a surprise: recycling eyeshadow palettes is actually really hard. Most
are equipped with a multimaterial component made of plastic, metal hinges, and a mirror (which are never recyclable because of their reflective coating). PYT Beauty took all this into account and designed The Upcycle Eyeshadow Palette ($28). Now, when you've used up every shade — and trust us, with the neutral colors and soft finishes, you will — just pop out the metal pans, give them a rinse, then toss everything into your recycling bin.
Conscious Makeup Hall of Fame
Saie Beauty Mascara 101
Lengthening and Lifting
Finding a good clean mascara is like finding a needle in a thousand haystacks, but the search is over with the Saie Beauty Mascara 101 Lengthening and Lifting ($24). It gives us all the length and buildable volume we love with only natural (or naturally derived) ingredients, like beeswax, shea butter, and plant extracts. The jumbo rubber brush and spiked tip also helped us target every single lash, even the ones hiding in the tiny inner corners.