Dogged Blog

3 great cruelty-free mascaras for sensitive eyes and contact lens-wearers

I have dry, sensitive eyes that tear at the slightest provocation. I also wear contact lenses. And while my lashes are fairly long and naturally grow in an upward direction, they've become very light in color and not as thick as they used to be as I've gotten older. All of which adds up to me being someone for whom mascara makes a big difference, but is almost impossible to wear comfortably.

Add to that the fact that I will only buy cruelty-free makeup and can't tolerate makeup with gluten, and it's amazing I have one brand of mascara to recommend, let alone three. (Please note: None of these are affiliate links, and I buy my own makeup.)

Chantecaille Faux Cils Longest Lash Mascara. Let's start with the best mascara I've ever used, and certainly the most expensive.

"Faux Cils" means "false eyelashes," and this is pretty much what they look like once you get a few coats of this gentle, deeply black mascara on your lashes. (It only comes in black.) It has never bothered my eyes at all, and doesn't make them look clumpy or spidery. This high-end mascara retails for $72 at stores like Nordstrom and Neiman-Marcus -- the latter will let you sign up to purchase every 30, 60, or 90 days, which I recommend. No one, but especially anyone with sensitive eyes, should wear a mascara older than 90 days. Which should be a significant motivator to wear mascara more frequently, if you decide to invest in this product.

Bonus: While I don't wear mascara daily, this one claims that if you do, it will actually make your lashes grow longer and thicker.

Bottom line: I don't see how this mascara could be better, even without the treatment claim.

Chantecaille's cruelty-free statement: "Chantecaille skincare products are free of phthlates, sulphate, detergents, mineral oil, petrolatum, palm oil, synthetic color, synthetic fragrance and GMOs. We are cruelty free."

Chantecaille information on Cruelty-Free Kitty

Chantecaille Faux Cils Longest Lash Mascara is listed on Nordstrom's gluten-free products page, and claims to be gluten free in correspondence with the Gluten-Free Makeup Girl blog.

Trish McEvoy Lash-Curling Mascara. Significantly more affordable at around $30, this mascara is very different from Chantecaille while being nearly as impressive.

It really does lift my lashes even more upward in their sweep (which is what "curling" lashes actually do), and hold them there for hours. It's a tubular mascara and thus a bit harder to remove than other mascaras I've tried, but I just press a cotton pad saturated with micellar water to my eye, hold it for several minutes, then gently pat the mascara "tubes" away.  The upside is that it literally will not and cannot smudge or smear, no matter how much your eyes might tear up.

The slight hassle is well worth it for this reliable, gentle mascara. Trish McEvoy is also available at Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, and can be ordered from N-M on a 90-day replenishment basis. It's only available in black.

Bottom line: Long, curly, lashes with no smudging, at a reasonable price for high-end mascara.

Trish McEvoy's cruelty-free statement: The company only has a terse comment that they do not test on animals on their website.

Trish McEvoy is listed on Cruelty-Free Kitty's 2017 list of products not tested on animals.

Lash-Curling Mascara is noted as gluten-free on the Trish McEvoy website.

RMS Defining Mascara. At $28, this is the least expensive mascara I tried.

RMS is a lesser-known but excellent brand, with a passionate commitment to high-quality, organic ingredients. They're available at many smaller retailers, and are available online from Nordstrom. I originally purchased this product from Amazon and it was legit, but I've bought makeup on Amazon that I'm sure was fake, so I can't recommend it.

I may have been drawn to RMS Defining Mascara because of the brand, but it's a reliable, gentle mascara that never clumps or gets spidery. It doesn't have the va-va-va-voom of Chantecaille, but it's my go-to for daily use. I have one in my bathroom and one in my purse at all times. Like the others, it only comes in black, and is cruelty-free and gluten-free.

Bottom line: Reasonably priced for a higher-end mascara, great ingredients, gentle, makes lashes longer and darker without clumps.

RMS Beauty's cruetly-free statement: Their website says they do not test on animals.

RMS Beauty on Cruelty-Free Kitty

RMS states all their products are gluten-free.

 

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High-end shopper or on a tight budget, there are cruelty-free makeup and skincare products for you

Your budget isn't a valid reason to buy cosmetics and skincare products that were tested on animals. Cruelty-free beauty products don't cost more or less than brands that torture animals for the sake of mascara and lipstick.

Because I've been writing more about makeup and skincare lately, I'm hearing from a lot of readers and friends who have their own thoughts on beauty products. Two of my friends should be careful not to meet each other, though, because my understanding is when matter and anti-matter meet, things explode.

The first friend told me, with great confidence, that she couldn't possibly use cruelty-free cosmetics because she was on a very tight budget and buys all her makeup and skincare at the drugstore. "Cruelty-free is for rich people," she said.

Just a week later, a second friend told me, also with great confidence, that the reason she didn't use cruelty-free cosmetics is because her skin is very sensitive and she can only wear high-end products or she breaks out. "They don't sell cruelty-free products at Nordstrom," she assured me.

The problem is, of course, that they're wrong. Both of them. Matter and anti-matter.

Cruelty free products are indeed sold at Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and countless other high end retailers. Some of the brands include By Terry, Trish McEvoy, Marc Jacobs Beauty (a separate company from Marc Jacobs Fragrances, which is not cruelty free), Jane Iredale, Paula's Choice, Trish McEvoy, RevitaLash,  and Chantecaille (of the $64 mascara that's worth every penny).

They're also sold at Sephora and Ulta -- Kat Von D, Anastasia Beverly Hills, BECCA, Hourglass, Urban Decay, Butter London. They're sold on Beautylish, which carries both affordable brands like cult favovrite RCMA, and pricey brands like Natasha Denona, Kevin Acouin, and Charlotte Tilbury.

And yes, they're sold at the drugstore. Some of the very best, least expensive cruelty-free products are sold at drugstores, in fact: Milani, Physicians Formula, E.L.F., Wet 'n' Wild, NYX, Makeup Academy, Sonia Kashuk -- all of them are affordable cruelty-free products sold in drugstores as well as big box stores like Target, online, and other retailers. There are more listed over at Cruelty-Free Kitty.

My purpose in writing this isn't to list cruelty free brands; others do that, and I'm grateful to benefit from their research. I'm simply saying despite what you believe, and regardless of whether you're Nordstrom's best customer or buy all your makeup and skincare products at Walgreens, you can afford to choose cruelty-free beauty.

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How Teen Vogue brought my inner girl back to life

Politics. The loss of two beloved dogs in less than one year, one after a lightning-fast illness at a young age, the other after a long, slow, complicated decline in her senior years. And did I mention politics, or, as I think of it, the threatened collapse of everything that makes this America?

Those are the reasons I've not blogged as much as I used to. But the example of those badass journalists at Teen Vogue have me inspired to blog again about the subject nearest and dearest to my heart after dogs and politics: Makeup and skincare.

Have no idea what I'm talking about? Read The true story of how Teen Vogue got mad, got woke, and began terrifying men like Donald Trump. Seriously -- read it. It will give you hope at the same time it prompts you to buy the nearest teenage girl a gift subscription.

In it, the author says:

Everyone loves rainbow highlighters. They make you look like a beautiful pixie who fronts a glam-rock band. Also, white nationalism is a cancer on our democracy. Women are capable of holding both of these truths in their minds, and prioritizing them accordingly.

Now, I do love rainbow highlighters, but only on someone who has a complexion a lot different than mine. But I do love, and have always loved, makeup and skincare and hair. I started my career as a hairstylist at the age of five, when I gave Kathy Buoncristiani a bang trim with my construction paper scissors. My mother didn't let me have Barbie dolls, but my baby dolls all had hairstyles that ranged from what would one day be known as a punk rock buzz cut to intricate braids that would rock the runways even today.

After I finished college, I even went to beauty school, then worked in salons and opened three of my own in the golden age of 80s style.

When I went beck to journalism in 1991, news and investigative reporting proved too stressful for my somewhat fragile spirit. (Yes, I've toughened up since then, but I still find it impossible to build the rapport needed to get a great interview with someone knowing I'm doing it against their best interests -- unless they're honestly the devil. And at least back then, there were not that many devils.)

So I switched my focus to what we used to call "women's pages" and now call "lifestyle" -- health, home and garden, pets, and fashion and beauty.

Science and medicine were my great loves, and I was lucky to have some great opportunities writing about human medicine. My love of animals soon drove me to take that experience and start writing about veterinary medicine, plus animal welfare, which is where I am today.

But you know what I miss? Writing about makeup and skincare. And you know what I hate? Feeling ashamed of that.

So let's see if unleashing my inner girl allows me to find my blogging voice again. I've missed that, too.

 

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Livelogging the 2012 No Kill Conference: Rethinking hoarding with Bonney Brown

It's sitting-on-the-floor-room only at the Nevada Humane Society's Bonney Brown's presentation on handling animal hoarding cases without killing.

This is the first session of the conference, being held at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. What I heard in the hallways on my way to the room: "Every where is full!" Certainly every room I looked into was at or near capacity.

I am blogging this live; hit "refresh" periodically to see new material. Since this is live, there will be typos. And only things in quotation marks are direct quotes. Everything else is a paraphrase.

Lipstick of my dreams

 I bought a new lipstick yesterday. I've been wearing it since then. I love it more than any lipstick in the entire history of ever.

My lips have been cracked and dry since I got back from my trip to the snow world two weeks ago. I've been wearing lip balm, but even that wasn't helping -- and I wanted to wear lipstick, but it got all mucked up and dark in the crack lines on my lips, even after I would exfoliate them and sleep in night cream. It was bad.

So I read about Cle de Peau on my favorite beauty blog, The Non-Blonde:

This Cle de Peau lipstick is one of the softest, smoothest lipsticks I've tried. It's almost like a balm, but with great coverage and excellent pigment (though some of the lighter shades are a bit more sheer). The staying power isn't as amazing as the regular lipsticks, but there's only so much you can expect from a super moisturizing lip color. I chose no. 117, which as you can see is a reddish plum, but I already see a couple of others in my future.

So I trekked down to Neiman-Marcus, the only place in San Francisco that sells the line, and tried it out. And guess what? Even better than expected. My lips are so soft and moist now. I mean, I'd be thrilled to get results like this from a lip balm. To get them from a lip color product? Awesome.

And incidentally, I also bought 117. Beautiful and an amazing amount of color in a moisturizing lip color!

One thing I feel a bit unsure of, however. I always investigate whether a product is or isn't tested on animals before I buy it. My initial investigation of Cle de Peau indicated they do not test their products on animals, and neither does their corporate owner, Shiseido.

Today, after I'd already bought the lipstick, I came across this list in Beautypedia, which indicated that while Shiseido does not, Cle de Peau's animal testing policy is "unknown." And I also saw some stuff on the web that suggested that while Shiseido doesn't test its end products on animals, some of its ingredients were. I'm not sure if that's true, and if so, if it's ongoing or in the past, and if Shiseido conducted those tests themselves or they were conducted for Shiseido, or if the ingredients were tested by someone else and Shiseido just used the same ones.

I sent an email to Cle de Peau through their website seeking clarification on this. I want nice soft lips, but not at the cost of giving my money to those who test cosmetics on animals. I mean, there is room for honest disagreement on animal testing for drugs and lifesaving medical procedures -- but eyeliner? Lipstick? Blush?

Not even close.

Is my long love affair with Aveda over?

 Aveda skincare products were like a miracle to the stressed-out, ravaged skin of my early 20s. I've been a faithful user since then, and it's consistently been the only skin care line and foundation brand that didn't irritate my rosacea.

Then they discontinued one of the few nighttime moisturizers that I could use, Night Nutrients. Still, I stocked up and soldiered on.

Yesterday, I discovered they've discontinued their liquid foundation. The salesperson at the Aveda store told me they were discontinuing it because "Aveda isn't known for their makeup," and would not be replacing it.

I have no idea what that means, but I'll tell you this: a skincare line without a foundation is only half a skin care line. We all need sun protection and those of us with dry skin and rosacea need to protect our skin from wind and temperature extremes, too. And yeah, I'm not wild about the blotchy redness showing through when it flares up, which it unpredictably does at odd times during the day.

So now I'm back out in the big world, looking for a really soothing, protective liquid moisturizer with sun protection and more-than-sheer coverage. And please, don't talk to me about the mineral powders -- I've tried them, and they make my skin feel like I have a sunburn. Not gonna happen, no matter how great they are for your skin.

Coco Before Chanel: Fashion? Design? Clothes? Not so much.

Imagine a film about Albert Einstein that doesn't mention physics, and you pretty much have "Coco Before Chanel," a film about Coco Chanel that barely mentions that oh yeah, she was a designer.

The first woman designer to break into the male-dominated Paris fashion houses, who went on to build an empire in her name, a name that became synonymous with style and elegance right up until today.

But of course, all that pales into meaninglessness in the face of the fact that she fell in love with some guy once.

I understood this film was about her life before she was famous. I simply assumed it would be about the development of her personal sense of style and also, that we'd get some sense of what made her tick. I got none of that. I found her motivations in most of this film incomprehensible, and while Audrey Tautou is beautiful and compelling and charismatic as Chanel, I simply had no freaking clue what I was supposed to think about her character.

And I don't mean that in a mysterious and intriguing sense. I mean it in the "Huh?" sense.

Big disappointment to me.

And thus do shoes make potential criminals of us all

I had to take my mother to a doctor's appointment at 8 AM this morning. I was sitting there waiting for her to come out of her exam, wishing I'd had just one more cup of coffee before I left the house, when a woman walked by in the best wedge-heeled, high backed super cool Mary Janes I've ever seen. If she hadn't been a tiny little thing who probably wore, like, size 4, I'd have thrown her to the ground, torn off her shoes, and run away with them and let my mom take a cab home.

Equally fashionable: Plus-sized clothes, deceptive marketing, and why I'm returning a skirt

If you've known me or been reading my blog for a long time, you might know that I lost a great deal of weight a few years ago -- more weight than most people weigh, period. I pretty much hate the way we talk about weight in this country, and it's very hard to discuss this topic without pissing me off, so although I'm always glad when I accomplish any goal I set for myself, I still tend to get annoyed when people congratulate me on my weight loss. Consider yourself warned.

I also think the visceral disgust with fat in this country is a fucking social disease, and that being fat is no worse for our health than sitting on our asses in front of the computer all day, or breathing the crap stale air in an office building, or eating processed foods. So if someone is fat, I have no agenda to judge or change that, but I also ask that they respect my right to do what I want with my own body, including lose weight.

Disclaimers aside, let's get to the part about clothes.

Although I've lost all this weight, I'm still "big and tall" by fashion standards -- I'm 5'10" and wear a size 18 Tall, 20 in some styles of pants. (It was actually hard to type that; I'm not as liberated as I would like to be.) So I mostly shop in the department known euphemistically as the "women's department" -- which must make size 3 women wonder WTF they are -- or, somewhat more descriptively, the "plus sizes."

Some stores, like Nordstrom, have a dedicated department for plus sizes, and other stores cater exclusively to sizes 14 and up.

Plus-sized clothes at Nordstrom are around the same price and quality as smaller sizes, although not always as fashion-forward. Companies like J. Jill, one of my favorite places to buy clothes, make the exact same fashions across all size categories, including tall sizes up to 20, bless them, although they don't always make everything in all sizes.

Among the "plus sizes only" stores/catalogs are some moderately expensive ones, like Silhouettes, and many, many really inexpensive ones, most notably the entire family of catalogs sold at "One Stop Plus," a retail aggregator of Woman Within, Jessica London, Roaman's, Avenue, and several more.

And after that very very long lead-in, which would no doubt make my editors and journalism instructors have heart attacks, we get to the main point.

Why are so many plus-sized clothes so badly made?

Look at the photo at the top of this post, and the skirt in the photo to the right. Set aside the issue of whether or not these clothes are to your taste or things that would look good on you.

But do consider this: Both images are promoting and depicting a new line of slightly higher-priced clothing with a fancy French designer tag, Taillissime, marketed as a more fashionable, slightly edgier, brand of plus-sized fashions through a group of companies that normally target a lower-end market.

To understand what I'm saying, compare these images with a couple of the same company's non-Taillissime images:

Now go Google "OneStopPlus coupons" and see how extremely aggressive these brands are with their discount policies. Their marketing is a heat-seeking missile for cost-conscious plus-sized women.

Because I'm lucky enough to have a fairly decent clothing budget, when I shop from these types of catalogs it's for basics like sweat pants and jeans, you know -- dog walking clothes, lie around the house clothes. I've known for years that their "fashionable" or "career" clothing  is of  poor quality -- not well constructed, and of cheap materials, as well as not being expensive. But I recently gave the new Taillissime line a try. And I bought that black skirt in the photo, because it really looks cute to me.

And it's a piece of crap that's going back as soon as I can slap some tape on the package.

I wouldn't normally care, but I do today. Because large-sized women should be able to freaking buy a skirt that at least looks close to how it does in the photo and not have to spend a hundred dollars on it -- because their smaller-sized peers can do that, easily. There are many, many places to buy reasonably priced, fashionable clothes in non-plus sizes. While they may not last beyond a single season -- the "cheap" has to come from somewhere -- they at least won't be made of glaringly tacky fabrics, as this skirt was, or have uneven hem lines, as this skirt did.

Large women on a budget are at the mercy of some pretty crappy choices for clothing. I'm sure this is a problem for women of any size, but when you're doing your best to look sleek and professional in a world that judges you on first impressions and how put together you are, and that's already assessing you negatively because you defy the mandate that all women must maximize their physical attractiveness for the viewing pleasure of the general public... you can see the problem.

If only Taillissime and the companies that sell it had put as much care into the execution of these clothes as they did into their marketing, photography, and even their design. Because some of these things would be cute if they actually looked like their photos.

And if they know their customers want more stylish clothing -- which would be why they created this line in the first place -- doesn't it logically follow that we''ll also be able to tell when we get the stuff out of the package that it's not really more stylish clothing, and certainly not worth even the slight premium it costs?

In re-reading this, I know I'm likely to set off a storm of, "You can buy inexpensive plus-sized fashionable clothing here and here and here," and I'm always happy to have new places to buy clothes recommended to me, so go for it.

But don't let the availability of inexpensive cute clothes at one group of stores or catalogs obscure the fact that the brands sold at One Stop Plus absolutely dominate the budget-conscious plus-sized clothing industry, and have for years. Large-sized women should have more choices at a lower price point, but more importantly, I think we should be treated with respect.

Short is the new black

I've been living in a fool's paradise these last few years.

Long skirt and dress lengths have been in fashion for quite a while now, and although the knee-length skirt look came in around four years ago, there were still plenty of longer hems on the racks and in the catalogs.

Now, I'm tall. Very tall. So those skirts that were meant to be ankle length were, on me, already mid-calf, which is just about where I like my skirts and dresses to hit.

All that's over now. And before some well-meaning person says "Damn fashion! Wear what's comfortable for you!", well, yes, I agree, except when something is not in fashion, it ceases to exist in stores, and yo, I do not sew and never have and never will.

And while something too long can be shortened, something too short cannot be lengthened, because in this day and age even the most expensive clothes come with only a tiny little bit of a hem, presumably to save money in fabric costs, so I can't even have the hem taken down more than, say, half an inch. And frankly, even if we were talking THREE inches of hem, it wouldn't be enough. Because I'm very tall.

Woe.

And speaking of black, the new black is also chocolate brown and sometimes charcoal gray. Now, I like gray and brown but only in small doses, and I like black. I like it a lot. That will never change. And yet, more and more often, I go to buy something in a catalog -- a sweatshirt or sweatpants, a hoodie, a t-shirt, some kind of dog-walking basic like that -- and it comes in gray or brown or, you know, magenta... but not in black.

I'm aware there are things more important than this in the world, but I refuse to give in to the "sky is falling" crap about the crazy creationist whack job the Republicans just chose as their veep nominee... I shall leave that to every other cable news commentator and leftist blogger, because really, they have it covered.

I shall simply do what I always do when everyone is running around wailing and tearing out their hair, and donate to Barack Obama. Why don't you do it too?