With Love from Greece

I even liked the light blue - a color I probably would never have bought on my own!

Sephora has this amazing eyeliner holiday set by my favorite makeup company, Korres.

It comes with 10 eye pencils: two black (one soft, one regular), one gold, one silver, one grey, one lavender, one navy, one light blue, one brown, and one green.  These eye pencils normally retail for $16, and prior to this purchase I've had my soft black and brown eye pencils for a few months, but this set is $32.50 at Sephora and comes with colors I'd wanted to try (like gold!) but couldn't justify spending $16 dollars for.  So a $160-valued set for $32.50 makes for ridiculous savings of $127.50!

Korres is a beauty company based in Greece that works only with natural ingredients.  They don't use mineral oils, silicones, or other non-biodegradable ingredients, nor do they test on animals.

This exclusive holiday gift set is a real steal, so treat yourself (like I did) to some great eye pencils.  I even got my friend, Katie, to convert and she loves these eye pencils now (her favorite is the soft black).

More about the ingredients after the jump:




Ingredients in Korres' eye pencils:

• Jojoba Oil - oil from the jojoba plant
• Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride - a type of coconut oil
• Limnanthes Alba Seed Oil - oil from meadowfoam plants
• Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil - oil from cottonseeds
• Mangifera Indica Seed Oil - oil from mango seeds
• Candelilla Cera - wax from the candellia plant
• Glyceryl Caprylate - a natural alcohol that works to preserve the pencil
• Cera Carnauba - a type of vegetable wax
• Macadamia Ternifolia Seed Oil - oil from macadamia nuts
• Tocopherol - vitamin E
• Chamomilla Recutita Extract - camomile flower extract
• Ascorbyl Palmitate - a type of vitamin C
• Mica - a mineral that makes the eyeliner shimmery
• Various minerals that give eyeliner color

Korres, unlike most beauty companies, has all of their ingredients readily available online as well as on their packaging.  A quick Google search told me what all those scary scientific names were - and they ended up being big names for natural ingredients.

Ingredients Korres does NOT use, commonly used in other beauty products: parabens, sulphates, propylene glycol, ethanolamines, phalates, GMOs, triclosan, EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid).

Google any of these ingredients and you'll find some not so awesome things to say about them:

• Parabens: contain estrogen, may act as an endocrine disrupter (aka mess with your hormones)
• Sulphates: form acid rain
• Propylene glycol: cause oxygen depletion and damage water life
• Ethanolamines: may cause liver and kidney damage, toxic when inhaled and can pass through skin
• Phalates: carcinogen in a high dose, but in low doses over long periods of time also act as endocrine disrupters
• GMOs: damage ecological systems
• Triclosan: currently under review by the FDA, potential endocrine disrupter, toxic to aquatic life
• EDTA: major pollutant, minor toxicity

I couldn't even tell you what most of these are since they are all some type of (extremely large) chemical.

I am a big believer in the capitalistic society and I believe buyer power so buying products that won't damage my own body or my environment is something that is very important to me.

Fortunately, Korres makes it easy because of their environmental policy as well as their commitment to giving their customers all the information they need - not to mention, their products are AMAZING.