theNotice: a beauty blog

With all the talk of LUSH’s new Emotional Brilliance range, I thought I’d take a moment to cover the entire lineup on theNotice. We’ve seen a lot of previews and such recently, but I’ve been hard-pressed to find a post with both product & shade breakdowns!

The line, which launched on the 21st, starts at $18.95 (for the auxiliary products) and goes up to $22.95 (for the staple items). All 30 products are 100% cruelty-free and vegan-friendly.

Now, here’s the green cool green and definitely cool part: the colours all come in clear glass bottles (glass is one of the most easily recycled materials globally, which I didn’t know before) with disposable-or-reusable brush inserts made from recycled black LUSH pots.

Each bottle holds 8g of product (liquid eyeliners are typically only 2g), and all the ingredients are listed inside the label, attached to the cap with a hair tie. Kind of awesome, right?

Play the Emotional Brilliance game to pick your colours…

or keep reading to see the whole range!

Liquid Eyeliner, $22.95

LUSH made an interesting choice with their liquid eyeliners, using two formulas for dramatically different effects. Independent (black) and Fantasy (gold) are designed with a no-smudge, stay-put formula, but the others have the same base as the cream eyeshadows — meaning you’ll have time to blend, despite their liquid base.

Cream Eyeshadow, $22.95

Formulated with a rose petal base and skin-softening almond and jojoba oils, LUSH’s cream eyeshadows are designed to blend easily and dry down to a soft, refined look.

Liquid Lips, $22.95

Formulated using LUSH’s Ultrabalm formula as a base, the Liquid Lips products have been made to moisturize, soften, and carry intense pigment. The effect can be worn on its own for a stronger lip (perfect for their wide range of reds!) or blotted down with lip balm for a softer look.

Eyes Right Mascara, $18.95

AKA the Fresh Wheatgrass mascara, which… I don’t know, man. I think that’s a hilarious and extremely LUSH thing to call a product, even though there isn’t anything strictly funny about it.

The Eyes Right mascara comes in just one colour (black), and promises a natural lash effect with no smudging or flaking. 

Ingredients lists & the rest of the range »

I wear a really startling amount of gold eyeliner, so a good, reliable (read: permanent-range) gold has been on the top of my wishlist for months. I have and love Marcelle Lux Diamond Pure Gold, which I rave about on a pretty frequent basis, but I’m constantly on the lookout for a solid gold: a smooth, metallic finish, rather than chunky glitter.

(Which isn’t to say that chunky glitter is a bad thing; I’m crazy about chunky glitter. It would be nice to have both on hand, though, you know?)

I can think of very few brands who do gold eyeliners, and even less who do them in the tone I’m looking for. (Less bumble-bee yellow and a little bit closer to white-gold, or at the very least, antique gold). Take the liquid component of the sentence–an integral part thereof–into consideration, and just like that… results found: 0.

(Make Up For Ever #9L might have fit the bill, but: pencil.)

Meet LUSH Fantasy.

I haven’t had a chance to see this one in person, yet, but I’m excited for it: a permanent-range gold liquid eyeliner, no chunkiness in sight. At $22.95 CAD for a whopping 8g of product–most liners are about 2g,–Fantasy is one of two eyeliners in the Emotional Brilliance range that have been formulated with a long-lasting, no-smudge formula. (The others are designed to take longer to set for a softer, more blendable look.)

Keep your fingers crossed for this one, fellow gold-lovers!

P.S. The Emotional Brilliance range is housed in glass bottles (both recyclable & easy to reuse) with disposable wand applicators made from recycled black LUSH pots. With no extra packaging (the ingredients and info are all on the name-tag, attached with a basic black hair elastic), they’re designed to look cool on a dressing table & travel just as well.

This cruelty-free range will launch July 21st in LUSH stores and online.

The product: LUSH Toothy Tabs

   ↳ in Dirty, Ultrablast, Breath of God, and Aquatic

The creation: LUSH created Toothy Tabs–their new-this-year and entirely unique solid toothpaste–to strip down conventional ideas about toothpaste. Free of plastic packaging (these no-frills boxes are made out of 100% recycled paper, and can in turn be recycled) and preservatives, the tabs differ drastically from a tube of Colgate or Crest both in formula and in form of delivery, which makes them a really unique (and travel-friendly) experience.

How they work: Created by Helen Ambrosen, one of the company’s co-founders, the tabs are made from a sodium bicarbonate + cream of tartar base, with essential oils and spices to give a light, clean aftertaste instead of the typical aggressively minty one. The oils were chosen both for their scents (Simon Constantine, who designed the seven flavours, describes it as perfuming someone’s breath) and for their antiseptic qualities, meaning they both clean your palette and help prevent bacteria that leads to bad breath.

How each ingredient gets your teeth squeaky-clean

My thoughts on the Toothy Tabs

I’ve been testing out LUSH’s [no longer] new Toothy Tabs for a good few months, now, and I still find myself waiting for them to “click.” They’re really cool, of course, and super-portable, but I’m not really sold on the taste. They’re a lot better than most natural toothpastes, for sure, and less agressive than the drugstore’s seemingly endless supply of super-spicy offerings, but the baking soda makes them overbearingly salty, overall.

Travel- and texture-wise, though, I quite like these. I keep a few tabs in a tiny plastic baggie in my purse, and they’re so much more compact than a small tube of toothpaste. (Easier to use, too; you just pop one in your mouth and chew, no finicky toothpaste tube caps involved.) They froth up really nicely when brushed as normal with a wet toothbrush, creating a more dense foam than I’ve ever gotten from toothpaste.

The verdict?

At $3.95 CAD for a box of 40 tabs, LUSH makes it pretty easy to try out the Toothy Tabs. In the long run, yeah, you’re paying more for your toothpaste, but (if you can find a flavour that you like,) I think they’re well worth the cost.

The tabs are portable, convenient, eco-friendly, and come in seven flavours — way more than your typical toothpaste. (Is this still true? I’ve used Colgate Winterfresh for coming up on ten years now!) If you’re looking for a vegan-friendly toothpaste, or you want a natural toothpaste that tastes strange without actually tasting awful (ahem, Tom’s of Maine), give these a try.

Additional photos &amp more »

I don’t think we’ve covered Easter beauty on theNotice in the past, but there are a few sets and products out this year that are just too perfect to pass up. So, without further adieu: let’s get eggy!

(I can say that, right? It’s not, like, weird or sexual or offensive in any way?)

The eos Easter Basket

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about the eos smooth spheres, but I promise it’s not because I love them any less now than I did then. I just get distracted; you know how it is. (Plus, my sister appropriated my Honeysuckle Honeydew balm a while back, and I’ve yet to pick up another.)

I have to be honest, here: when the eos Easter image popped up in my inbox, I couldn’t not post about it. I mean, how cute is that? When a great, 100% natural, petrolatum- and paraben-free product turns out to be the perfect beauty-addict version of an easter egg, you just have to share the joy.

And if that little piece of joy just so happens to be $3.99 CAD and USDA-certified organic, well.

A bit of LUSH…

Reusable bubble bars, eggs with tiny birds inside of them, and random donkeys, oh my!

I don’t think there’s any beauty company that does the holidays (by which I mean all holidays) as thoroughly or weirdly as LUSH, and you have to give them points for effort awesomeness. And, just as a testament to that awesomeness: an excerpt from Donkey Oaty.

“We’ll be honest. We don’t really know why we’ve got a donkey for Easter. It’s very odd. We originally had the idea of creating a Bath Bomb piñata that you hung over the bath and then smashed, so we made a big donkey bomb. Although we liked the idea, we couldn’t work out what should be inside the donkey (eggs? A little donkey?!) – so we made him a bit smaller.”

LUSH is about as weird as it gets, and the fact that they’re pulling off both strange and mainstream? Obviously, they’re doing something very, very right!

And, finally, some Ellis Faas.

Ellis’ Spring Gift Set isn’t actually out for Easter, specifically, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s out just in time for the holiday! (Also, Easter colours and Spring colours are pretty much the same, aren’t they?)

The set, at a cringe-worthy $85.00, contains a lavender-taupe (Creamy Eyes E106), a shimmery lilac (Light E304), and a nude pink lip colour (Milky Lips L207). I’m rather at odds with the Ellis packaging, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: no one does cream eyeshadows like Ellis Faas. They can be a bit difficult to work with, but they last all day – quite a feat, with lids as difficult as mine.

Have a lovely Easter weekend!! xx

5. L’Occitane Cherry Blossom

New this February to mark the fifth anniversary of their Cherry Blossom range, L’Occitane has released a limited-edition Cherry Princesscollection. The super-cute fruity-floral collection is available in a number of separates (here), but they have a few sets on for a great deal as well – their five-piece Cherry Princess Romantic Escape kit looks particularly lovely, despite its cheesy name.

4. Ellis Faas

My relationship with Ellis is rather hot-and-cold, which I think could be said for many beauty bloggers (not just me). Their products are always absolutely breathtaking, both in formula and shade, but the packaging is a thorn in my side. Skip their eyeliners and anything with a showerhead applicator (these clog more easily), but do try their other products – anything with a brush tip, and keep a sample jar on-hand in case of overflow.

Ellis is running a surprise at the moment for all lip products, so if you’ve been thinking about ordering, now’s your chance.

Love is in the air and Saint Valentine is on his way. So until Valentine’s Day, we have a lovely deal: for each Ellis Lips you buy from our webshop, you will get a surprise that will double the pleasure of your Ellis Lips order! Why? Because you have two lips? Not really – we simply believe in “the lippier the better”.

So start browsing now: Creamy Lips, Milky Lips and Glazed Lips, order and get yourself our Valentine’s present(s).

Check out Ellis Faas’ lip products here.

3. LUSH

It wouldn’t be Valentine’s without some cheeky products from LUSH, now, would it? ;) There’s the little blue Ex-Factor bath bomb, the tongue-in-cheek Leap Frog (described as an–and I quote–”amorous amphibian for the tub”), and (for the lip balm junkies out there) the scarlet A Million Kisses lip tint.

2. Pink, pink, pink

It’s Valentine’s Day. Enough said.

(Translation, from a beauty junkie’s mind to the real world: an excuse to buy pink products! And you may as well get something you’ve had your eye on for a while, right? After all, this only happens once a year, and a pink lipstick is so very much better for you than an entire pint of ice cream. Or an entire bottle of wine.)

1. The Classic

I’m kind of crazy about fragrance minis at the moment, whether they’re adorable samples, petite sizes, or travel sprays. While not released specifically for Valentine’s, the Love, Chloé purse spray is just too cute to miss.

Canadians should be able to find this set (one container with three 10ml refills) at Holt Renfew and select Bay stores, while Americans will see this on shelves at Saks (this month) and Sephora (in March).