Honest Beauty is the newly-launched cosmetics branch of The Honest Company, and their makeup is everything I want safe, nontoxic makeup to be.
Why It Rocks
- The ingredients are clean and don’t irritate my sensitive skin.
- The makeup is well-pigmented but with a natural, flattering finish.
- The foundations, in particular, sit weightlessly on the skin and don’t settle into fine lines or pores.
- All the products wear well throughout the day.
- And, of course, Honest Beauty makeup is free of parabens, silicones, talc, petrolatum, mineral oil and synthetic fragrances.
- Thankfully, Honest Beauty makeup works with a wide range of skin tones and ethnicities (which is too frequently not the case in the natural makeup world). And Honest Beauty’s interactive website makes it easy to virtually test the makeup on different skin tones.
Want more clean makeup recommendations? Check out:
The Shopper’s Guide to Natural & Nontoxic Makeup
The Product Lineup
Every Honest Beauty product I’ve tried is fabulous, but for the sake of this article I’m going to focus on the face products. Here are the game-changing products I’m beyond excited to share with you:
- Everything Cream Foundation, $22: Highly blendable full-coverage foundation that feels light on the skin. I also use a darker shade for contouring. Available in 8 skin-true shades.
- Cream Blush, $13: Easy-to-use creamy color for the cheeks in 4 flattering shades.
- Luminizing Powder, $20: An impossibly gorgeous powder for highlighting or all-over finishing. It evens skin tone while brightening and enhancing. Available in 2 shades.
- Oil-free Everything Tinted Moisturizer SPF20: Jacqueline’s note: I can’t believe it! Honest has discontinued this awesome product. Have no fear, though, because I have worthwhile alternatives for you below!
I’ve also included three other noteworthy Honest Beauty products that are the perfect adjuncts to Honest Beauty face makeup:
- Magic Balm: This multi-tasking balm softens lips, highlights cheekbones, and smooths brows. And that’s just a few of the useful ways to use Magic Balm.
- Elevated Hydration Mist: It’s the ideal mist to set makeup and keep skin plumped and moisturized all day long. The secret is in the delivery system!
I had the great pleasure of testing most of the Honest Beauty makeup and skincare products and, overall, this is an incredibly high-quality line at a reasonable price. But where Honest Beauty really shines is with their face makeup. Their tinted moisturizers, foundations, blushes, and powders have raised the bar on quality nontoxic makeup.
Some of the products and packaging have changed since Honest Beauty first launched, but what I’m sharing with you here can still be useful in determining if these products are right for you!
Honest Beauty Cream Foundation
Here’s where us consumers benefit from having a seasoned actor (Jessica Alba) at the helm of a cosmetics company: the countless hours actors spend in the makeup chair mean they know makeup. As in really, really well. The Honest Beauty Cream Foundation has the ability to compete with the best mainstream full-coverage foundations out there. It performs! With the debut of this Cream Foundation, I now have one that is equally clean and red carpet ready. Not only is it in my everyday makeup kit, but it’s also part of my event kit.
I use the foundation in two shades (the second one is used for contouring). Linen is my primary color. Sand—a slightly deeper shade—is my contouring tool. It’s not necessary to have two foundations to make this Cream Foundation look great—if you find one shade that works for your skin tone, you’re set! But if contouring is your thing, you’ll love how foolproof it is to use a second, deeper Cream Foundation for that purpose.
Like the tinted moisturizer, the Cream Foundation also improves upon skin’s texture. It sits lightly, not settling into pores. And while many foundations make the “velvet” claim, Honest Beauty actually delivers. This Cream Foundation has a true velvet finish.
The Cream Foundation lasts all day if used with a primer such as this one or even just with a thin layer of the Tinted Moisturizer.
The coverage is medium-to-full.
Ingredients: caprylic/capric triglyceride, mica, castor isostearate beeswax succinate, dicaprylyl carbonate, isopropyl palmitate, hydrogenated castor oil, jojoba seed oil, silica, lauroyl lysine, glyceryl behenate, carnauba wax, matricaria flower extract, calendula flower extract, lemon peel oil, lavender oil, tocopherol, glycerin, sunflower seed oil, water, potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate. May contain: titanium dioxide or iron oxides.
The Honest Beauty Cream Foundation is $22. But get it as part of a bundle, and you’ll save.
Luminizing Powder
Honest Beauty made a forward-thinking choice to forgo a traditional matte setting powder. Their slightly shimmery Luminizing Powders reflect a more modern ethos that creates a subtle, healthy-looking glow. The Luminizing Powders can be used to sculpt, highlight or set.
Honest attributes the silky texture of this powder to the baking process it undergoes. The formula begins as a liquid then is baked into a solid powder. But whatever the process is that led to this lightweight, talc-free powder, I love it. It’s just so darn flattering.
The color I have is Dawn Reflection, which is now discontinued. They now carry two colors, Midnight Reflection and Dusk Reflection. This switch makes sense—Dawn Reflection has a bit muddy, but by limiting the shade offerings to one more ivory and another more bronzey, we have more artistic flexibility when we work with the two colors together.
Ingredients: mica, silica, corn starch, squalane, caprylic/capric triglyceride, caprylyl glycol, lauroyl lysine, sorbitan sesquioleate, tocopherol, hectorite, sodium dehydroacetate. May contain: titanium dioxide or iron oxides.
The Honest Beauty Luminizing Powder is $20.
Honest Beauty Cream Blush
Honest Beauty’s choice to offer a cream blush instead of a powder version reveals yet another modern inclination. Properly blended cream blush creates a glow-from-within flush that is difficult to achieve with a traditional powder blush.
Honest Beauty Cream Blush is meant to be applied after foundation and powder. And the rich pigmentation means that it only takes a tiny amount to create a natural-looking pop of color on the apples of the cheeks.
Ingredients: castor seed oil, caprylic/capric triglyceride, beeswax, candelilla wax, ethylhexyl palmitate, polyglyceryl-6 polyricinoleate, C10-18 triglycerides, carnauba wax, octyldodecyl stearoyl stearate, apple fruit extract, raspberry fruit extract, vanilla extract, blackberry fruit extract, grape extract, glyceryl caprylate, triethyl citrate, alcohol. May contain: iron oxides, titanium dioxide, ultramarines, mica, red 30 lake, red 6, red 7 lake.
Honest Beauty Cream Blush is $13…. but don’t forget about that bundle!
Alternatives to the Tinted Moisturizer SPF20
Honest Beauty no longer sells the Everything Tinted Moisturizer, which is a disappointment.
But the green beauty industry has many worthwhile alternatives. Here are a few of my top recommendations:
- Juice Beauty Stem Cellular CC Cream ($39) with SPF 30 and anti-aging ingredients.
- Ilia Beauty Sheer Vivid Tinted Moisturizer ($42) is semi-matte and available in 6 shades.
- Organic Glam Sheer Tint from The Organic Pharmacy ($62) is a luxe option out of England.
Bonus Honest Beauty products to pay attention to:
Magic Balm
This multi-use balm contains beneficial ingredients like tamanu, chamomile and jojoba to soften and soothe roughened or dry skin.
Magic Balm is a handy “everything” product that you don’t know you need until you have it. I keep it in my purse and am still discovering uses for it. Here’s how I’ve used it in the last week:
- to moisturize cuticles
- as a highlighter on my cheekbones
- to soften lips
- to soothe my daughter’s chapped nose after a cold (with clean hands, of course!)
- to smooth out end-of-day under-eye concealer creasing
Magic Balm is $13. Check it out here.
Elevated Hydration Mist
Honest Beauty’s Elevated Hydration Mist is better than most facial mists for mid-day applications. Here’s why: both the formulation and the packaging are high quality. Emphasis on the packaging!
Many decent facial hydration mists are undermined by sub-par delivery systems. If the product can’t be evenly sprayed onto the face in a fine, barely-there mist, then it can’t be trusted to be used in the middle of the afternoon. No one wants to have a mist unevenly spat all over their face.
Honest Beauty’s Elevated Hydration Mist sprays a fine, even mist over the entire face. Makeup is not in danger of smearing. Fine lines are plumped out. Makeup is set. Skin prone to dryness or flaking is kept in balance. It’s a wonderfully useful product.
I have it both in the large and small sizes: one for the vanity and one for my purse.
The Elevated Hydration Mist is $14 for a 3.3oz spray bottle. Purchase it here. The smaller travel version can be found in one of their kits.
About Bundling and Discounts
Keep in mind that as I list the individual prices for these products, Honest Beauty offers some pretty spectacular deals if you order as a bundle. You can order any three Honest Beauty products for $50, with additional products at a discount.
Shipping is free and returns are free.
For instance, ordering the Cream Foundation, Luminizing Powder and Concealer Duo would cost $75 if purchased individually. But as a bundle, it’s only $50. It’s a great deal, especially considering that many decent foundations cost $40-$50 on their own.
The price for taking advantage of these bundling discounts is that you’ll be automatically signed up for recurring orders on your bundle. Thankfully, bundles can be changed or canceled quite easily.
Changing the frequency of the bundle—or the products included in your bundle—is conveniently done online when you’re logged into your account. But to cancel the bundle, you must call Honest Beauty within one week of your most recent bundle being received.
Being the skeptic that I am, I was concerned that Honest would make it exceptionally difficult to cancel the recurring order (as other less reputable companies are prone to do). Would their phone service put me on hold for 45 minutes? Would the bundle that I canceled show up on next month’s Amex bill?
Thankfully, that was not the case! I called to cancel a bundle (not because I didn’t like the products, but to experience Honest’s cancellation policy in action). It was painless. A friendly woman picked up right away and quickly canceled my bundle. No shenanigans.
With the money saved through Honest Beauty bundles, making the switch to clean makeup is finally feasible.
The launch of Honest Beauty is a boon for anyone in search of clean, quality makeup. I’m grateful for the upgrade it’s afforded my own beauty routine—and I’m excited to now share it with you!
Highly Recommended
These products are part of my popular guide, Shopper’s Guide to Natural & Nontoxic Makeup.
*This post is not sponsored. All opinions are my own.
**Products get makeovers too. Be sure to check if this product has been recently re-formulated before using it yourself.
