Aveda - Vegan List

So I was super excited to see that recently, Aveda were added to Logical Harmony's cruelty free brand list*.

UPDATE: Aveda are now 100% vegan!

Original Post:

Before the Estee Lauder buy-out, when they starting using the standard EL testing policy (I'm not sure if they ever actually went into the Chinese market or not!), I was a HUGE fan of Aveda. My number 1 all time hair product was their curl enhancing lotion. So to hear they are now CF again made my day.

I decided to contact them for a vegan list and it was very refreshing to receive a super helpful, polite email a couple of days later with the list of products that are not vegan (as it's shorter - weeee!). I say refreshing because I feel really frustrated this week with the cut/paste and unhelpful answers I've been getting from brands - but more on that in another post. For those of you here for the list, here it is (I've also pasted their response for information too) .....

Thank you for your interest in Aveda and I apologise for the delay in responding to you.

Sarah, although Aveda products are not certified Vegetarian or Vegan, many of our products contain no animal
derived ingredients. However, we have a small assortment of products that are made with beeswax or
honey since we have not found substitutes for these particular ingredients in those formulae at this time.
As of March 2013 you will find Beeswax or Honey in the products listed below. We are also happy to
provide the ingredient listings for any product you are interested in using for your review -- please contact
us with the specific product names.

Beeswax:
Lip Saver™
Lip Shine
Light Elements Shaping Wax™
Light Elements™ Texturizing Crème
Nourish-Mint™ Rehydrating Lip Glaze
Nourish-Mint™ Renewing Lip Treatment
Nourish-Mint™ Sheer Mineral Lip Color
Nourish-Mint™ Smoothing Lip Color
Uruku Lip Pigment
Uruku Color Gloss

Honey:
Phomollient™
Pure Abundance™ Volumizing Clay Conditioner
Pure Abundance™ Volumizing Hair Spray
Pure Abundance™ Volumizing Hair Potion
Pure Abundance™ Volumizing Shampoo

YAY, my beloved Curl Enhancer is safe! I should note that for those of you who avoid cruelty free companies with non cruelty free parent companies, Aveda are owned by Estee Lauder.

Have an awesome weekend everyone!
Sal xXx

Ps: * Logical Harmony's list is, in my opinion, the most thorough and my go to list for finding out if a brand is cruelty free. There are others I check if a brand is on the LH Pending or Grey Area lists and of course I spend a lot of time contacting brands myself too, but this one is the one I trust the most.

theBalm - Updated Vegan List

As this post is now pretty out of date, I contacted theBalm this week and asked for an updated list and here it is. If you're a fan of theBalm, bookmark this page, as I will update it here whenever I receive confirmation of new vegan items.

Vegan Options from theBalm
Read My Lips – all shades
Meet Matte Hughes – all shades
Pickup Liners – all shades
BalmShelter Tinted Moisturizer – all shades
Photobalm – all shades
timeBalm Primer
Put A Lid On It
Stainiac – Beauty Queen
Cheater Mascara
Whats Your Type? – Tall dark and Handsome + Body Builder
Schwing
Mad Lash
Mr. Write Now – excluding Scott + Raj
Overshadow – all shades
Sexy Mama
Bahama Mama
Instain – all shades
Balm Beach
Balm Springs
Mary Lou Manizer
Highlite N Con Tour
Meet Matte Ador
How Bout Them Apples

Just a quick one today but keep an eye out for a new beauty video going live on youtube tonight, which is uploading as I type!!

Sal xXx

June's Vegan Kind Box (Food)

I've been getting the Vegan Kind beauty boxes for a while and I think they're pretty awesome, but they're quarterly and I like getting boxes of cool shit. So I decided to sign up for the monthly snack box, because I'm a complete pie and yesterday, my second one arrived.

Because I love you, I busted out my proper camera and went outside and took these pictures for you! No shitty iPhone pics for yous today! That is love.

Oooohhh

So inside the box there was a Bounce V Life protein ball (I've seen this brand in Holland & Barrett and the majority have whey powder in, so it's nice to see one with the Vegan Society logo on!)

Next up was this Chewsy lemon chewing gum; not gonna lie, I'm not excited about this. Mostly because I'm worried it'll be minty lemon flavour, which is abhorrent and should be banned. I'm keeping it for a taste test video that I'm planning on filming REAL soon, so keep an eye on my youtube (*cough*linkabove*cough*) channel for that.

Next these salted sticky toffee sweets which sound pretty good. As I turned them over to read the ingredients I was saying to myself "please don't be made of dates please don't be made of dates...." They are made of dates! BUT they do also have golden syrup in, so I'm feeling hopeful. In fact I'm gonna try one right now, hang on......

OK so they're good! Don't taste too healthy, nice kick of sea salt and I like the crispies in there. Not sure they're worth 50 calories for how small a piece is, but good if you don't care about that shit or just want a salty chocolate hit. If only they were ball shaped!

Next up, Metcalfe's Sweet n Salty flavoured Skinny Popcorn. I'm already a fan of this; I quite often buy a bag for a snack!

 

Next, this interesting looking natural energy drink. It says it has gurana and high levels of caffein in - sold! I'm gonna try it on Monday morning.

Also, although I say it's a food box, I believe it's sold as a 'lifestyle' box so you also get at least one non-edible item. This month's was this candle from Harper's candles. I love that it has the TVK logo on. I have to be honest, it kinda smells like a generic home fragrance spray you can buy in the supermarket. However, those are full of shite and tested on animals so this is way better anyway. I love a good candle so I'm interested to try this out.

So that's this month's box. What do you think? Did you get it too? What do you love? What do you think is total pants? Do you think it's worth the box price (I totally do!)? Why am I asking so many questions? Seriously Sal, what is this, 20 questions?

I must say, I'm never disappointed with the beauty or food (so far) boxes; they really are a great way to discover new stuff for a lot less than you'd pay for the individual items. Here's a pic of the May beauty box, for those interested:

And last month's lifestyle box:

You can sign up for either of TVK's boxes via their website >> linky link.

Have an awesome weekend.

Sal xXx

Birthday Food (and a bit of makeup!)

So last Friday was my 38th (fuck!) birthday and unlike most years when I ask for a tonne of makeup, or vouchers to buy a tonne of makeup, I mostly asked for gym stuff. Yes I've become that bellend! I got a new fitbit...

Ooooh shiny!

My trainers are on order and my best friend bought me a gym towel that I asked for. Also I spent this morning browsing Fabletics for gym leggings (I forgot to skip the month, duh), but I digress.

I did get some makeup, my awesome Bro and Sis-in-law brought me this lovely lot and I need to play with it all soon so I can organise my thoughts on it!

Simon also bought me a beautiful bracelet and a cute Penguin called Pongo to add to our collection, seen here acting as my glamorous assistant, showing off the Vegan Tuck Box that my rad friend Jojo sent me.

But onto the food.

We went to Las Iguanas, which is a chain restaurant here in the UK, for those of you not on this side of the pond. They have a separate vegetarian menu, that has all the vegan options marked on it.

We shared a couple of starters. Firstly, chips & guac:

Then we went for the Taco Plank, which had coconut squash on (so good!)

For my main I picked the Moqueca de Palmitos, which I'm pretty sure I have every time! It's a lovely mild curry type dish, with coconut milk and tonnes of veggies in, including squash and hearts of palm. They serve it with rice and some green beans.

We also shared some curly fries :)

I spent the rest of the day drinking birthday prosecco, but I also wanted to show you the cake that Simon had made for me! How awesome is this! He sneakily asked me some of my favourite cruelty free makeup brands and so this cake features Nars, Anastasia Beverley Hills, Charlotte Tilbury and Nabla! So cool. My photo doesn't do it justice at all.

Also this cake was HUGE! Inside was layers of chocolate sponge, with chocolate frosting and also a top layer of speculoos spread. It was delicious.

Overall I had such a good birthday. Even more so because I feel super grateful for how things have changed in a year. Last year on my birthday, I was basically in tears on the couch most of the day due to a back injury, that meant I was in so much pain, I could barely walk to the loo! After that, a load of other stuff went wrong and the rest of 2016 was a complete shower of shite.

So far, 2017 has been awesome and I feel unbelievably lucky that my back is pretty much better. 10 minutes of walking at Christmas had me in agony; now I'm doing my 10,000 steps every day and going for 3 mile walks whenever I can (with no pain!). I am back at the gym and feel better than ever. My fiance has a new job that he loves and is happy in and in a few short months, we'll be getting married.

So 38 is looking like being a good year and I'm super excited for what's to come. If I had a drink in my hand I'd cheers ya, but apparently it's bad luck to cheers with water, so I'll not do that, I'll just bugger off and stop rambling.

Love & stuff
Sal xXx