Naturalla Beauty

For my actual birthday today, I've teamed up with one of my favorite online stores, iHerb, for my final giveaway of the month.  iHerb is an online retailer selling all kinds of healthy products: supplements, food, cosmetics, household supplies, and more!   Basically they sell the same kinds of things you'd find in a health food store, but at a substantially lower cost.

I've been ordering from iHerb since 2011 (I even documented very first order here) and I've always had a great experience.  From a Canadian viewpoint, I get access to brands that we don't have here, as well as lower prices on the ones we do.  Even with the exchange and the Canadian dollar doing so poorly, most things still work out to lower, or at least comparable, prices to what I'd pay locally.  iHerb lets you check out in Canadian dollars (or other currencies) and they've also recently added a new DHL shipping option that collects tax on Canadian orders, so you don't have to worry about being charged tax or fees at the door.  I also received this most recent order in 1 day with the new DHL shipping, which is crazy impressive!

Customer service is also great.  I haven't had any major issues in the more than 30 orders (!!) I've placed, but any problems have always been taken care of easily and appropriately. iHerb also has a simple rewards program if you want to refer friends, as well as new loyalty credits that reward everyone with 10% of all purchases back in store credit.

Clearly I've done my share of shopping with iHerb on my own dime , so when they offered to sponsor this post, I was excited to work with a company I already think highly of AND to have the chance to give two of you a chance to try iHerb for yourselves (more on that later!)  All opinions are, as always, fully my own.

Keep reading for a peek at my latest iHerb order and first impressions on the things I picked up.  

Stick around until the end to enter the giveaway, or if you don't want to wait, use my referral code ITI429 for $5 off your first order now!


Andalou Naturals Chia + Omega Radiant Skin Polish + Blemish Vanishing Gel
The Chia + Omega Skin Polish was featured as one of my Top 15 of 2015 and is a firm favorite of mine.  This will be my third tube of the scrub, which offers a perfect balance between gentleness and thorough exfoliation.

The Blemish Vanishing Gel is a salicylic acid spot treatment.  I didn't actually pick this up for pimples, but instead for use on a single millia-like blemish that I've had on my cheek for a few months now.  Nothing else has worked on it, and after seeing multiple recommendations for salicylic acid, I thought I'd give it a try.  Usually a higher content than the 2% in this spot treatment is recommended, but I haven't seen any higher ones with clean ingredients, so I thought, since salicylic acid hasn't touched my skin in more than 10 years, the lower percentage MIGHT still do the trick.  And it has, sort of.  The bump got noticeably smaller within the first couple days using the Vanishing Gel, but it hasn't gone away completely yet.  The Blemish Gel also works great on regular breakouts/pimples.  

Both products also came with free minis of other Andalou products.  I received the Purple Carrot + C Luminous Night Cream, which I've actually been using for the past few months, and the new to me Kombucha Enzyme Exfoliating Peel, which I'm excited to try.  I love when Andalou includes freebies like this!

DeVita Revitalizing Eye Lift Creme
I was debating between DeVita's Eye Creme and Eye Serum, but this review on kimberlyloc.com pushed me over the edge on the creme.  In addition to the affordable price point, what intrigued me about both eye products was the inclusion of Vitamin K, a circulation booster that can be very effective on dark circles.  The Eye Creme is a rich cream that also includes hyaluronic acid, shea butter, oat beta glucan, and Tetrapeptide-3.  I've been using it for almost two weeks now and I can't say I've noticed much difference beyond moisturization, but I'm hopeful for more visible results with longer use.

Pacifica Camellia Blushious Coconut & Rose Infused Cheek Color
I've had my eye on these Pacifica blushes ever since they launched a few months ago, and I finally picked up Camellia, a light pink/peach with slight gold sparkle.  I really like it!  The Blushious blushes are described as sheer mineral cheek colors, and as the description suggests, Camellia isn't highly pigmented.  It's a pretty color, but I do find I need to layer quite a bit on even my fair skin, so I doubt this color would show up very well on deeper skin tones.

Mineral Fusion Ruby Lipstick
After falling in love with Mineral Fusion's Sheer Moisture Lip Tints last year, I thought I'd try one of their regular lipsticks.  Happily, it's been an all around hit as well!  The copper tube is beautiful, the formula is great, and I love the color I chose as well.  Ruby is basically my perfect red: a bit deeper than a classic red, with very slight berry tones.  It's a gorgeous shade that reminds me a lot of the much spendier Aux Rouge Lip Boost from Gressa, only a hair darker and housed in a traditional lipstick bullet.

Emani Plush Hydrating Lip Color
My love for sheer lip colors is no secret, so when I spotted Emani's Hydrating Lip Colors, I thought they'd be right up my alley.  After looking at swatches, I chose Plush, a medium/bright pink.  The formula is sheer but buildable and although it's not extremely hydrating, it feels comfortable on the lips.  My only issue is that the lipstick has a sweet, almost vanilla-like scent and there's nothing in the ingredients list to account for that smell.  I've contacted Emani for more information, but I haven't heard back so far.

Everyday Minerals Sugared Mauve Tinted Lip Butter
The Tinted Lip Butter in Nearly Nude is one of my favorite everyday lip products, so I decided to pick up another color.  The formula on these is wonderful and Sugared Mauve is a pretty, sheer mauvey-nude - very wearable and also great for everyday!



Hurraw! Sun Balm
Sun Balm is my favorite SPF lip balm and it's a product I'm happy to have it back in my life.  SPF 15 from non-nano uncoated zinc oxide and no real whitecast make this a fantastic product to keep in your sun protection arsenal.  It also smells yummy - like a vanilla-orange creamsicle.  The Sun Balm has a thicker/creamier formula than the regular Hurraw! balms and I prefer both the feel and how it lasts considerably longer on the lips.

Blum Naturals Oil Absorbing Facial Tissues
I feel like you should be able to just pick up blotting tissues at the drugstore, but it's amazing how many additional ingredients sneak into those things!  The Blum Oil Absorbing Tissues are basic powderless blotting papers and they work well at removing oil/shine without disturbing makeup.  They're a staple in my purse.

Mineral Fusion Northern Lights Mini Nail Polish Kit
Mineral Fusion nail polishes are 5-free and one of my favorite formulas.  If I could buy all my nail polishes as minis, I totally would, which is also why I love these kits so much.  The Northern Lights Kit, specifically, was a 2015 holiday release and includes Coal Mine (black with silver shimmer), Cascade (shimmery silver), and Blue Nile (metallic dark teal).  I can't wait to use these!

I'm excited to give away two $50 shopping sprees to iHerb!  Follow the Rafflecopter widget, below, to enter.  

The giveaway is open to anywhere iHerb ships.  Winner must have an iHerb account (or register with iHerb) to claim the prize.  Shipping will be taken care of by iHerb, but the winners, if outside the US, are responsible for any additional taxes/duties/brokerage fees levied to them by their Customs Agency and/or Postal Service.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

In the four years (!!) since I started this blog, I've gotten a lot of emails and questions about product recommendations, and more specifically, about natural replacements for certain types of products.  With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to do a series of posts encompassing some common questions I've received, as well as some of the products I personally found most difficult to transition to natural and nontoxic options.  Starting us off, let's talk about a product that doesn't get mentioned very much: medicated lip balm.

What's so wrong with medicated lip balm?
In addition to the regular nasties found in conventional lip balm - things like petroleum, silicones, parabens, and synthetic fragrance - medicated lip balms contain ingredients like phenol, an antibacterial and analgesic ingredient linked to neurotoxicity and respiratory, kidney, and cardiovascular problems, docosanol, a topical drug that's been linked to headaches and has not yet been tested for safety with pregnant and breastfeeding women, and chemical sunscreens, linked to free radical damage, cancer, and endocrine and hormone imbalances.  And consider this - the labels on both ChapStick and Blistex Medicated Lip Balms include warnings to "Keep out of reach of children.  If swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away."  Now, I'm sure they're referring to swallowing larger quantities than a couple swipes across your lips, but do you really want to be putting something with a poison control warning on your mouth??
I'll be totally honest: I've never used a conventional medicated lip balm.  But, from what I've seen, people opt for these choices over regular lip balm for one of three basic reasons: i) to treat cold sores, ii) for sun protection (SPF), or iii) because they like the tingle and/or numbing sensation from phenol, menthol, eucalyptus, camphor, and/or mint.  

So, with that in mind, I've got replacement options to suit all three uses.  I've tried most of them personally, but a couple I've included just based on ingredients and positive hearsay.   

I  also want to mention that I came across more than one article on the habit-forming nature of ingredients like phenol in lip balm, so if you're making the switch, keep in mind that it may take some time to break your lips of that dependency.

Lip Balms for Cold Sores
There's a ton of anecdotal evidence about treating cold sores with the amino acid lysine.  Lysine won't cure the actual herpes virus behind the cold sore, but it's a popular holistic treatment for outbreaks and can both prevent the onset of a sore, if caught early enough, and speed up healing time of any sores that do erupt.  (Along with applying it topically, lysine is great to take internally for cold sores too.)  Other good ingredients to watch for when targeting cold sores are tamanu oil, melissa/lemon balm, and tea tree.  

I don't recommend the popular Quantum lysine lip balms due to their chemical sunscreen content, but MyChelle makes a great alternative.  The Love Your Lips Lip Balms come in four flavors and are made with both lysine and lemon balm.  They don't have any listed SPF content, but they do contain titanium dioxide, so there's a good chance you're getting at least minimal sun protection.

Badger's new Tea Tree & Lemon Balm Herbal Lip Care is another great choice and certified organic as well.  Along with tea tree and lemon balm, it also contains tamanu oil and peppermint oil and menthol crystals for a refreshing minty tingle.  The Herbal Lip Care is available in both Badger's classic lip balm and cocoa butter lip balm formulas.  

Lastly, the Sierra Bees Organic Tamanu & Tea Tree Lip Balm is another good one, although bear in mind that this one does have a pretty strong tea tree oil taste.  It also doesn't seem to be sold on its own right now, just in the Sierra Bees Variety Pack.  

Lip Balms with SPF
As I said before, chemical sunscreens are not ingredients I favor, so these two picks both offer mineral-based sun protection.  My top choice is the Hurraw! Sun Protection Balm with SPF 15, which smells great and is made with non-nano zinc oxide.  It goes on clear, without any whitecast, and is also made with red raspberry seed, sea buckthorn, and pomegranate seed oils, which have SPF and antioxidant properties of their own.

Badger is the first company I think of when it comes to safe sunscreen and their Sunscreen Lip Balm Stick (SPF 15), made with non-nano uncoated zinc oxide, is another good option.  It's unscented and more longwearing than the Hurraw!, but it can leave a whitecast on your lips.  For that reason, this is a great one for layering under a colored lip product.

Lip Balms with a Minty Tingle
The Hurraw! Mint Lip Balm is not for the faint of heart!  I finished my tube a while back, but I remember not wanting to venture outside in the winter with this on because of just how cold and minty it felt on my lips.

For slightly less punch, but still a decent minty tingle, Portland Bee Balm's Oregon Mint Lip Balm is an excellent choice.  With only four ingredients, the peppermint is noticeably tingly, but not as strong as in the Hurraw!  

On the more mild end of the spectrum, Epic Blend's Mint Hemp Lip Balm is fantastic.  It gives just the slightest tingle, but moisturizes like a dream and has a wonderful fresh peppermint/spearmint scent that reminds me of chewing gum. 

Burt's Bees Soothing Lip Balm with Eucalyptus and Menthol also sounds promising, though I haven't used it myself to gauge how strong the cooling sensation actually is. 

And that's a wrap!  Let me know if there are any particular kinds of products you'd like to see featured in upcoming posts for this series.   

I wasn't able to put together an empties post for January, so this one's going to be a bit of a doozie!  Even though #NoBuyJanuary is over, I've still been focusing on using what I have throughout February and it's always more than a little validating to be able to see some progress with these posts!



This batch is probably what I'm most excited about using up, since it really streamlined the products that are left in my shower.  The Acure Argan + Argan Stem Cell (review) are still my favorite shampoo/conditioner duo for my curly hair.  I'm currently trying the mint ones, which are also nice, but I expect I'll go back to the Argan again afterwards.  The Organic Excellent Wild Mint Shampoo and Conditioner (review) were what I was using before discovering Acure, but about a year ago, there was a bit of an ingredients hooplah over whether the company was accurately disclosing ingredients and they've just been languishing in my shower ever since.  I wouldn't recommend these anymore, but I wanted to move them out, so I used the shampoo up as body wash.  I tried to use the conditioner as a shaving cream, but my skin was no longer a fan and reacted badly.  A search for alternate conditioner uses found many claims that conditioner will clean your drains, so that's what I tried to do with the bottom half of the bottle.  I'm not convinced it did anything, but I'm happy to finally have these out of my shower (and my life) all the same!

I used Desert Essence's Fragrance Free Conditioner maybe two times on my hair, but I loved it as a shaving cream.  I was all set to buy it again for that purpose, but the bottom of the tube was strangely congealed and lumpy and has turned me off it for the moment.  I'm exploring other options, but I'm sure I'll return to it at some point.  Intelligent Nutrients' Styling Gel (review) is a fantastic hair gel, but prices recently went up and at $14 for 2 oz. ($31 for 5 oz.), I'm not sure I can continue to justify the cost for a product I use up at a decently quick rate.  I'm trying out a couple less expensive options right now.


I've written about Earthpaste Toothpaste (review) and Acure's Unscented Cocoa Butter + CoQ10 Lotion (review) many times before.  Both are firm favorites and I've already started on new tubes of both.  I love Weleda, but I'm a little conflicted on the Sea Buckthorn Hand Cream.  I adore the scent, but I do think the Pomegranate Hand Cream is a bit more effective.  Both absorb incredibly fast, but the Pomegranate keeps my hands feeling moisturized for longer.  

This is my second sample of Weleda's One Step Cleanser & Toner and I'm still a fan for morning cleansing.  It's great for refreshing the skin, without being harsh or drying.  Pai's Rosehip Bioregenerate Oil is a bit of a cult favourite, and while I wasn't 100% convinced at first, by the second half of the bottle, I was sold.  It wasn't enough hydration for my skin this winter on its own, but I enjoyed mixing it with other oils, most recently jojoba and goji seed.  This is the only rosehip oil I've used, and while I do believe the combination of fruit and seed oils makes it better than your average rosehip seed oil, the frugal part of me wants to try another, less expensive one before recommitting to Pai's.  


At the beginning of #NoBuyJanuary, I mentioned wanting to use up a bunch of lipstick samples, but so far, Zuzu Luxe's Indulgence is the only one to bite the dust.  It was a pretty color - a plummy-red with gold shimmer - but I'm not a huge fan of shimmer on the lips, so I doubt I'll be buying the full size.  The black rimmed pot was an older homemade lip balm that had been forgotten, but it was something I quite enjoyed once I rediscovered it.  
Lucy Minerals' Juicy Peach Blush is a gorgeous pale peach that might just be my all-time favorite blush color.  I'm not sure how it would suit darker skin tones, but on my fair skin, it looked very glowy and natural.  The sample alone lasted me months, but I'll definitely be ordering the full size at some point.  Another thing I'll be picking up soon is Silk Natural's Splendid Perfecting Glow.  The Perfecting Glows fall somewhere between finishing powders and highlighters and I liked using the Splendid to brighten up under the eyes.  It was slightly yellow-toned and worked really well at boosting other concealers and making everything look more fresh and awake.  

I managed to accumulate a number of Ella's Botanicals soap samples, but these are the last of them.  Skin Soother is very gentle and great for sensitive skin, or for dry, winter weary hands, which is how I used these last two.  I can't believe how many lip balms I've been burning through this winter, but at least I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed that process with these two.  Young Living's Vanillamint Lip Balm was a limited edition holiday flavour, but my favorite is still the lavender one, which is available year round.  Hurraw!'s Mint Lip Balm (review), while fantastic for indoor application, still isn't what I reach for before going outside and braving the elements.  The mint scent is very fresh and tingly.

And that's it!  My usually packed shower is so uncluttered right now, I can't even believe it.  I guess the combination of focusing on finishing things up and not bringing in any new product for January helped me get through a bunch more stuff than usual!