On My Radar: 5 Up & Coming Green Skincare Brands
Even though I guess I could call myself an influencer (as much as I roll my eyes at the term)... I'm also very easily influenced. And while I'm still addicted to all things K-beauty, I also have a growing fascination with the green beauty sphere thanks to Instagram. A large part of the skincare community on Instagram is focused on green, natural brands so naturally as the lemming I am, I've also started delving into the green beauty sphere.
The shopaholic in me wants to buy all the things (and I already have started buying an item or two from some of these brands...) but chatting about them in the meantime satisfies the itch.
Because 'green beauty' is such an ambiguous term open to interpretation, I won't be tackling what I think it means in this post. All the brands I'm chatting about today market themselves as green brands and many can be found at famous green beauty stores like Credo or CAP beauty.
And because I wanted to focus on up & coming brands, I didn't feature any of the big names in green beauty. Even the green beauty brands that I would consider to be mainstream in the skincare community (ie Farmacy, Drunk Elephant, Tata Harper, etc. ) aren't necessarily mainstream to everyone else, or even mainstream to the larger beauty community. Sometimes as bloggers/ skincare addicts/ enthusiasts of any topic, we form our little bubbles and forget about what's considered common knowledge in the outside world.
Kypris Beauty
I'm a pretty packaging obsessed nut so it's telling when I say that Kypris Beauty is one of the prettiest brands out there. And while their packaging is what pulled me into the brand, their ingredients are what made me stay interested.
While all their products have gorgeous packaging, their serums are the most eye-catching and what the brand is known for-- coincidentally they're the products that call to me the most!
I've already picked up the Moonlight Catalyst serum (which I mentioned in my Cult Beauty haul post) and I couldn't be more excited to give it a go. Kypris markets it as an herbal alternative to retinol. As I've mostly stayed away from retinol in fear of turning into Deadpool, I'm curious to see the results I get with this serum. It contains fermented pumpkin enzymes which Kypris claims is gentler yet more effective than AHAs. I love my AHAs so that's a pretty big claim to live up to.
In addition to their Moonlight Catalyst serum, they also have Antioxidant Dew which is for hydration and their Clearing Serum which is targeted towards oily, blemish prone skin.
If you're unsure about which serum to try, I would recommend checking out the Kypris sample sets at Alayka Beauty. They're a UK based store that offers free shipping, and the money you spend on the Kypris sample set can be counted as credit towards a future Kypris purchase from their store.
Otherwise you can find full sized Kypris products at Nordstrom, Anthropologie, Cult Beauty, and a whole host of smaller, green beauty stores (like Alayka!)
LXMI
Not going to lie, when I first saw the balm by this brand appear on the "new in" page at Sephora, I gave it a laugh and moved on. It had one ingredient in it and cost sixty two freakin' dollars.
But after I started seeing the brand pop up on Instagram, I ended up giving it a second look and realized I got the brand all wrong. Unlike brands like Farsali Oil and its unicorn poop, there's a legitimate reasoning behind the luxury price tag for LXMI's oil based products. The ingredients are ethically sourced and the harvesters are paid a fair, living wage according to the brand. That's exactly the kind of luxury brand I want to support!
Another reason I'm crushing on the brand is because of its founder: Leila Janah. Read her wiki page and you too will be instantly inspired! She's a fellow first generation American Indian (as in her parents are from India) and founded a successful non-profit business before she was 30!
Last week Ipsy was offering a LXMI set as a daily deal which I ended up buying. The package is set to arrive today so I guess I'll be trying out both their products sometime soon! The brand also offers samples through their site for free + the cost of shipping. You can also find their line at Sephora, like I mentioned up above.
Odacité
Shout out to Jenny over at Geeky Posh for introducing me to the brand through this post on her blog. Ever since then, I've been seeing their tiny bottles of serum all over the place.
The founder is a breast cancer survivor who changed her entire lifestyle after being diagnosed. She founded Odacité to be a mix between luxury French skincare and green California living (according to her bio on their site.)
While they do offer a larger range of products, it's their serums that caught my eye. They all come in tiny vials and each seem to contain two active ingredients. The active ingredients are supposed to target specific skincare concerns and I believe the serums can be mixed and matched. Basically, their whole line is customizable. Instead of buying one product that claims to do 10 different tasks, you can pick and choose a few of their serums to target specific concerns.
Personally I'm tired of brands boasting that their products accomplish 2498734 different tasks. Even products and brands I love are guilty of this! It's refreshing to see a brand focus on specific concerns. In this way, Odacité seems to be the green, luxury cousin to the Ordinary!
Retailers that carry Odacité include Nordstrom, Blue Mercury, Cult Beauty, and more!
Youth to the People
As far as I know Youth to the People is a very new brand hailing from California. Even though they've only got four products, I want all four! I would much rather a brand start of with 3 (their 4th product is newer), well-formulated products than a whole line of half-assed crap.
Their line includes a cleanser, a moisturizer, a serum, plus an eye cream and I have yet to read a legitimate negative review on any of them. All of their products are homegrown in California in small batches with 100% vegan ingredients and 100% recyclable packaging. The best part is they believe in the power of science! They've got a whole page on their site dedicated to the various ingredients found in their products-- vitamin c, green tea, hyaluronic acid-- all the good shit.
Typing up this post I've convinced myself that I need to run to Dermstore and place an order for one or three of their products during their 20% off sale (...which I ended up doing 🙈 .) You can also find their line at Sephora, Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom, and Anthropologie.
Herbivore Botanicals
This was the only brand that I was hesitant to name as an up and comer as opposed to a mainstream brand but the more I got to thinking, the more I decided to place it in the former category. They've been at Sephora for about half a year and according to this WWD article from September 2016-- they've been growing at a rate of 300% a year! That kinda growth is indicative of up and comer status.
One of the things that first attracted me to the brand is their price range. While their oils are definitely luxury priced ($70+) they also have more affordable masks, cleansers, and lip products under $25. I've shopped from their site once and found the shipping to be super fast and relatively affordable. I bought one item and the shipping was around $4.
In addition to offering an impressive lineup of products, they're also active and vocal in supporting various causes! If you look on their blog you'll see that within the past two months they've had two different events where they donate 30% off their proceeds to non-profits supporting women and human rights groups.
They're easily the most accessible brand on this list as they're available at Sephora, Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters, Dermstore, the Stell, and dozens of other stores. They have a local stockist finder on their site which is quite handy!
And while I could keep this list going on forever, I'm going to cut myself off here. There are so many more brands that I'm excited to try and talk about! I'll definitely be publishing more "on my radar" posts throughout the months and sharing more green beauty brands that are tempting my wallet! I think I might also upload a K-beauty edition of "on my radar" sometime soon-ish 🤔
What brands are on your radar at the moment?
The shopaholic in me wants to buy all the things (and I already have started buying an item or two from some of these brands...) but chatting about them in the meantime satisfies the itch.
Because 'green beauty' is such an ambiguous term open to interpretation, I won't be tackling what I think it means in this post. All the brands I'm chatting about today market themselves as green brands and many can be found at famous green beauty stores like Credo or CAP beauty.
And because I wanted to focus on up & coming brands, I didn't feature any of the big names in green beauty. Even the green beauty brands that I would consider to be mainstream in the skincare community (ie Farmacy, Drunk Elephant, Tata Harper, etc. ) aren't necessarily mainstream to everyone else, or even mainstream to the larger beauty community. Sometimes as bloggers/ skincare addicts/ enthusiasts of any topic, we form our little bubbles and forget about what's considered common knowledge in the outside world.
Kypris Beauty
I'm a pretty packaging obsessed nut so it's telling when I say that Kypris Beauty is one of the prettiest brands out there. And while their packaging is what pulled me into the brand, their ingredients are what made me stay interested.
While all their products have gorgeous packaging, their serums are the most eye-catching and what the brand is known for-- coincidentally they're the products that call to me the most!
I've already picked up the Moonlight Catalyst serum (which I mentioned in my Cult Beauty haul post) and I couldn't be more excited to give it a go. Kypris markets it as an herbal alternative to retinol. As I've mostly stayed away from retinol in fear of turning into Deadpool, I'm curious to see the results I get with this serum. It contains fermented pumpkin enzymes which Kypris claims is gentler yet more effective than AHAs. I love my AHAs so that's a pretty big claim to live up to.
In addition to their Moonlight Catalyst serum, they also have Antioxidant Dew which is for hydration and their Clearing Serum which is targeted towards oily, blemish prone skin.
If you're unsure about which serum to try, I would recommend checking out the Kypris sample sets at Alayka Beauty. They're a UK based store that offers free shipping, and the money you spend on the Kypris sample set can be counted as credit towards a future Kypris purchase from their store.
Otherwise you can find full sized Kypris products at Nordstrom, Anthropologie, Cult Beauty, and a whole host of smaller, green beauty stores (like Alayka!)
LXMI
Not going to lie, when I first saw the balm by this brand appear on the "new in" page at Sephora, I gave it a laugh and moved on. It had one ingredient in it and cost sixty two freakin' dollars.
But after I started seeing the brand pop up on Instagram, I ended up giving it a second look and realized I got the brand all wrong. Unlike brands like Farsali Oil and its unicorn poop, there's a legitimate reasoning behind the luxury price tag for LXMI's oil based products. The ingredients are ethically sourced and the harvesters are paid a fair, living wage according to the brand. That's exactly the kind of luxury brand I want to support!
Another reason I'm crushing on the brand is because of its founder: Leila Janah. Read her wiki page and you too will be instantly inspired! She's a fellow first generation American Indian (as in her parents are from India) and founded a successful non-profit business before she was 30!
Last week Ipsy was offering a LXMI set as a daily deal which I ended up buying. The package is set to arrive today so I guess I'll be trying out both their products sometime soon! The brand also offers samples through their site for free + the cost of shipping. You can also find their line at Sephora, like I mentioned up above.
Odacité
Shout out to Jenny over at Geeky Posh for introducing me to the brand through this post on her blog. Ever since then, I've been seeing their tiny bottles of serum all over the place.
The founder is a breast cancer survivor who changed her entire lifestyle after being diagnosed. She founded Odacité to be a mix between luxury French skincare and green California living (according to her bio on their site.)
While they do offer a larger range of products, it's their serums that caught my eye. They all come in tiny vials and each seem to contain two active ingredients. The active ingredients are supposed to target specific skincare concerns and I believe the serums can be mixed and matched. Basically, their whole line is customizable. Instead of buying one product that claims to do 10 different tasks, you can pick and choose a few of their serums to target specific concerns.
Personally I'm tired of brands boasting that their products accomplish 2498734 different tasks. Even products and brands I love are guilty of this! It's refreshing to see a brand focus on specific concerns. In this way, Odacité seems to be the green, luxury cousin to the Ordinary!
Retailers that carry Odacité include Nordstrom, Blue Mercury, Cult Beauty, and more!
Youth to the People
As far as I know Youth to the People is a very new brand hailing from California. Even though they've only got four products, I want all four! I would much rather a brand start of with 3 (their 4th product is newer), well-formulated products than a whole line of half-assed crap.
Their line includes a cleanser, a moisturizer, a serum, plus an eye cream and I have yet to read a legitimate negative review on any of them. All of their products are homegrown in California in small batches with 100% vegan ingredients and 100% recyclable packaging. The best part is they believe in the power of science! They've got a whole page on their site dedicated to the various ingredients found in their products-- vitamin c, green tea, hyaluronic acid-- all the good shit.
Typing up this post I've convinced myself that I need to run to Dermstore and place an order for one or three of their products during their 20% off sale (...which I ended up doing 🙈 .) You can also find their line at Sephora, Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom, and Anthropologie.
Herbivore Botanicals
This was the only brand that I was hesitant to name as an up and comer as opposed to a mainstream brand but the more I got to thinking, the more I decided to place it in the former category. They've been at Sephora for about half a year and according to this WWD article from September 2016-- they've been growing at a rate of 300% a year! That kinda growth is indicative of up and comer status.
One of the things that first attracted me to the brand is their price range. While their oils are definitely luxury priced ($70+) they also have more affordable masks, cleansers, and lip products under $25. I've shopped from their site once and found the shipping to be super fast and relatively affordable. I bought one item and the shipping was around $4.
In addition to offering an impressive lineup of products, they're also active and vocal in supporting various causes! If you look on their blog you'll see that within the past two months they've had two different events where they donate 30% off their proceeds to non-profits supporting women and human rights groups.
They're easily the most accessible brand on this list as they're available at Sephora, Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters, Dermstore, the Stell, and dozens of other stores. They have a local stockist finder on their site which is quite handy!
And while I could keep this list going on forever, I'm going to cut myself off here. There are so many more brands that I'm excited to try and talk about! I'll definitely be publishing more "on my radar" posts throughout the months and sharing more green beauty brands that are tempting my wallet! I think I might also upload a K-beauty edition of "on my radar" sometime soon-ish 🤔
What brands are on your radar at the moment?