I’ve been so busy lately I haven’t had much time to blog — those of you with comments in the queue or questions you’ve sent to me in emails — I promise I’ll get to you soon!

Anyway, I (gasp) ran out of lip gloss/balm two days ago, and I was forced to make a sudden trip to the Body Shop.  (I’m a lip balm/gloss addict — if I don’t wear lip balm at all times I get cracked and bleeding lips.  Really.  And actually I find lip glosses to be better than lip balms — they last a lot longer on me, anyway . . . )

It struck me that it’s really weird how so many places have cruelty-free samples of all kinds of cosmetics except for lip glosses.  It’s really frustrating.  I’ve bought a bunch of whole tubes of lip gloss online at $12 a pop (more if you count shipping) and the colors never really turn out, which is frustrating.  I am really interested in trying some Earth’s Beauty lip gloss, but it only comes in a few colors and no samples whatsoever!  There are samples of Earth’s Beauty face powder and lip glaze from various sites, but none of the lip glosses (on bewellstaywell.com and allnaturalcosmetics.com, anyway,) appear to have sample sizes.

Which leaves brick and mortar stores.  Which I have scoured.  I went by Whole Foods AND Sephora.  Unfortunately Whole Foods only has two brands of 100%-cruelty-free lip gloss (according to leapingbunny.org, anyway!) — Gabriel and Alba Botanica — neither of which have colors that work for me.  (And maybe it’s just my Whole Foods — why, why, why does it carry Zuzu Luxe eyeliner but not Zuzu Luxe lip gloss?  Again with the frustration.)  So then I tried the 100%-cruelty-free brands at Sephora — Urban Decay and Too-Faced — and unfortunately none of the lip glosses there really worked for me either.  (Most lipstick looks too orange on me — I have trouble finding good pinks.  I don’t think I’m that unusual — almost everyone I know tells me how they can never find good colors of lip gloss.)  So I was desperate — and I went to . . . the Body Shop.

So, I usually avoid the Body Shop because it sold to L’Oreal and L’Oreal is a big animal-testing-offender, and I’m a little bitter.  However, Body Shop products are 100%-animal-testing-free — the ingredients and the finished product are never tested on animals as certified at leapingbunny.org — and I actually think it’s good to pay L’Oreal for its cruelty-free products to encourage it to make more of them.  Rewarding good behavior, so to speak.

So anyway, I went to the Body Shop.  And oh — it was heaven!  I found the perfect color of lip gloss. I’m not going to review it today because I’ve only had it a few days and I may find something out about it I don’t like.  But the color is fantastic.  The saleslady was really nice to me as well and I ended up buying a bunch of other stuff I had no intention of buying when I walked in, which I’ll also review in the future.  I feel a little guilty supporting L’Oreal like this, but hey, morally I feel good about paying L’Oreal to NOT test on animals, I’m not facilitating any harm to animals, and the Body Shop really does make nice lip gloss in a great range of colors.

So I guess until more cruelty-free companies start doing lip gloss samples, I’ll be sticking with the Body Shop.  Just for lip gloss though, you understand . . .

Categories : cruelty free, me