We'll be the first to admit commercial perfume can smell mind-blowingly good. But if you’re making the switch to clean beauty, you might want to overhaul your perfume collection too. In its humble beginnings, the perfume industry started with local, small-scale production until consumer demand for mass produced perfume exploded in the last half of the 20th century. To keep up with the demand and maintain consistent quality and shelf life for products, chemical intervention was deemed necessary. The biproduct of a global perfume industry now wor...

How much thought do you give to skin-prep? Chances are, when you’re busy and time pressed, especially during the silly season, not a lot! When skin preparation can seem like another box to tick, how important is it? Just like a painter prepares the canvas to add paint, skin preparation allows for easy makeup application and creates a long-lasting, professional finish. Essentially, it's the steps you take to prepare the skin to receive makeup. A good skin-prep routine includes all the steps following cleansing through to makeup application, and ...

As the most-searched-for skincare trend in 2017, Vitamin C is having a moment in the spotlight. If you’re wondering what all the hype is about and whether you should include it in your skincare routine, the answer is yes . This powerhouse antioxidant packs a punch with benefits from neutralising UV damage and increasing the natural production of collagen to repairing damaged skin and reducing the visible signs of ageing. And while we can’t promise any single ingredient as the magic elixir for everlasting youth, a little Vitamin C goes a long wa...

Beauty begins in the belly . Edible Beauty , or ‘ingestible beauty’ is the new kid on the wellness block . What might have appeared as just another beauty fad, is now a whole new category of skincare and set to become a multi-billion dollar industry over the coming decade . When The Beauty Chef started out, in the infancy of gut health research , the ‘benefits of bacteria’ was a hard sell, and the idea of internal beauty was met with more than a few raised eyebrows . But The Beauty Chef founder, Carla Oates , knew she was onto something and pi...

There’s nothing quite the feeling of Spring! Emerging from the depths of winter to shake off the cobwebs and burst forth ready for a new beginning. As the official season of rebirth and renewal , Spring is the time to switch things up and invite in fresh energy and colour, adopt new healthy habits and generally overhaul your living environment. Let’s not forget our skincare! You may find that your skin does not change all that much between the seasons , in which case you may only need to make a few tweaks to your routine. For others, t he chang...

Founded on an ethos of ‘less, but better’, sans [ceuticals] is not your average clean beauty brand. From the 100% natural formulations, to 100% recyclable packaging, every part of the business is mindfully considered, giving new meaning to the term ‘conscious beauty’. If you're not already familiar with Sans [ceuticals] , the range is designed and formulated in small batches in neighbouring New Zealand, from potent and pure natural ingredients, sans (meaning 'without' in French) the need for harmful and unnecessary additives. Originally a hair...

If you’re a little bit like us, we just love to know what’s in everyone elses handbags . Specifically, what are the clean beauty and natural skincare products that make it into other people's on-the-go makeup bags . With so many i ncredible natural products out there, knowing where to begin can be overwhelming. Sometimes the best place to start is with recommendations from friends! To satisfy the voyeur in us all, we asked our founding kin to reveal their clean-beauty handbag essentials. Think of this as a personal recommendation from three ...

This week we had the pleasure of getting to know the effervescent founder of Edible Beauty Australia , Anna Mitsios . Anna was inspired to fill a gap in the market for a line of 100% natural, luxurious skincare products and the Edible Beauty Collection was born . Anna draws on her Naturopathic background to formulate products from botanical and often 'wildcrafted' ingredients that are as pure and close to their natural ‘edible’ state as possible. This philosophy of ‘inside out beauty’ lead Anna to follow up her skincare line with a range of in...

Beauty lit from within. This is the grounding philosophy behind renowned natural beauty label Vapour Organic Beauty . This year we invited Vapour onto the shelves and into our makeup bags , as one of only a handful of mindfully selected international clean beauty brands we offer at conscious.kin . The Vapour Organic Beauty story is enchanting; they hail from the Mountains of Taos, New Mexico , where art and alchemy merge in their line of multi-award winning, cult-worthy organic cosmetics created with the health of our bodies and the planet in ...

What happens when you take a successful 20+ year career as a professional makeup artist and marry with it the desire for high-performing, toxin free beauty products ? You get Kylie’s Professional ! Kylie’s products are coveted by everyone from industry professionals to the ‘everyday woman ’ for their use of cruelty free formulations made from effective natural ingredients , their award winning Mineral Goddess lipsticks , intense colour pigments and flawless finish. This week we had the pleasure of chatting to founder, Kylie , about the pivo...

Natural face mists are an essential part of any clean beauty skincare routine ! They’re multi-functional, deeply nourishing and easy to keep on hand and use throughout the day . Face mists have more or less taken the place of conventional ‘toner’ in a skincare routine , with many brands opting to combine the properties and function of a toner in an easy to use spray application (no more dabbing witch hazel on your cheeks with cotton pads). Once you find your favourite, you’ll never want it to be too far away! Facial mists are great for everyd...

We love a good multi-use beauty item! And where commercial brands can play on the consumer, making you feel as though you simply must have every single product in their range or your skincare routine will be lacking , one of the best things about the natural, ethical brands that we choose to offer , is the integrity behind them. Our makers will happily merge two products into one for a great multi-use cosmetic, and point it out to us too! It also pays to get a little creative with your makeup bag ; we’ve included some products that , whil...

Having recently taken out a host of awards at the recent Beauty Shortlist Mama And Baby Awards , Clemence Organics is the natural Australian skincare brand on everyone’s radar . Founder, Bridget, a naturopath by trade, is the brains and beauty behind the brand and we were lucky enough to chat with her this week to find out more about her journey and the business of organic skincare. Clemence Organics has been one of our staple brands at conscious.kin since the beginning . With naturopathic formulations made from powerhouse natural botanicals ,...

Last week we featured a round-up of the best natural mascaras for long fluttery lashes and this week it's all about the brows . Our eyebrows play a huge role in the overall look of the face; a pair of perfectly shaped brows will frame and 'lift' your face . But it's not just about hair removal ; the way we style our brows with the right brushes, pencils and gel is everything! It doesn't matter if you've been graced with naturally full brows or light sparse ones , everyone can achieve their brows of their dreams with the right tools and tric...

When you make the swap to clean beauty and natural skincare , one of the first areas of your beauty kit you’ll want to overhaul is mascara . Even if you’ve never experienced a reaction or sensitivity to conventional mascara (a common trigger for swapping to the natural version), a quick glance at the list on back of the wand will reveal a host of ingredients that don’t belong anywhere near our eyes. Petrochemicals, parabens and synthetic chemicals are just not necessary when a quality natural mascara will do the same, if not a better job, of p...

Smell amazing. Be well. Do good . That’s a motto we can get behind and it’s the ethos behind organic perfume label ONE SEED . Natural perfumes are a niche business and up until recently it was an an area still trying to find its feet in the clean beauty movement . Making the swap to natural perfume is often the final frontier of our beauty kit . Scent is personal, and finding ‘your’ fragrance can take time ! This week we got chatting to ONE SEED founder, Liz, about running her perfume label, the dangers of synthetic fragrances and her ‘a-ha’ mo...

We can often neglect our hands at the best of times . And in winter, with the extra dryness in the air and temperature changes between indoors and the elements outside, our skin needs a little extra love . Dry hands and irritated cuticles are nobody's friend! The solution : keep a natural hand-cream in your bag, car or desk at work and apply liberally as both a prevention and cure throughout the day. But where do you start and how do you choose? We'll admit, there's so many wonderful natural hand-creams on the market it can be tough! That's wh...

Ever found yourself wondering what is the difference between Vegan and Cruelty-Free ? They’re terms that are flashed around in the cosmetic industry , along with plenty of confusion about what they really mean and whether they’re interchangeable. We know that not all skincare and makeup is created equal and there’s actually an important difference between the two classifications ! Here’s the what-so ~ for a product to be classified as Vegan , it must not contain any animal products or ingredients derived from animals. To be classified Cruelty-F...

It is our absolute pleasure to introduce you to the founder of MV Organic Skincare , Sharon . Hailed as the ‘ No BS Beauty Queen ’, you can’t help but be inspired by Sharon and her team; our kin were lucky enough to soak up her veritable wealth of knowledge, wit and insight during our MV Skincare product training earlier this year. Sharon knows her stuff; she’s been pioneering the way forward in the natural cosmetic industry for 20 years . Long before clean-beauty and crystal facial rolling were a thing, and before we understood that ‘what you ...

We now have the research and science to back it: What you put on your skin goes in. And all those mainstream beauty products we’ve been applying for years; we now know to contain a cocktail of parabens, synthetic preservatives, chemicals, neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors ...ingredients you probably don’t want anywhere near your skin ! But just as there is no one-size-fits-all skincare routine, our reasons for ‘making the swap’ to clean beauty, are deeply personal. You might have decided to make the swap to natural products for health reason...

From humble beginnings selling small batches locally to becoming one of the front runners of the clean beauty makeup movement , Ere Perez has made leaps and bounds. The Natural Almond Oil Mascara , that launched the brand has achieved cult-status, followed closely by the Oat Milk Foudnation . Ere’s upbringing in rural Mexico , surrounded by her vibrant entrepreneurial family , instilled in her an appreciation for the natural environment and the idea of working with what you have. Her background in nutrition and natural therapies taught her tha...