May's wishlist

Some beauty products on my wishlist right now:

1. Stella McCartney - Stella EdT

2. Lime Crime - Riot
3. Too Faced - Better Than Sex Waterproof 

4. Too Faced - Cocoa Contour

5. Pureology - Strength Cure

List of Cruelty-free brands available at Sokos!

Sorry for the lack of updates!

In case you have missed, NYX is now available at Sokos! Inspired by that, I decided to create a list with CF brands I found available at their stores. Remember, not all brands are vegan but they're all Cruelty-Free (which means they do not test their products (or its ingredients) on animals and they don't sell in China)

- bareMinerals
- BeautyBlender
- Bulldog
- Dr. Hauschka
- EcoTools
- Eylure
- Four Reasons
- Formula 10.0.6
- Gosh cosmetics
- Hurraw!
- I Love... Cosmetics
- IsaDora
- Joe Blasco
- KC Professionals
- Lavera
- Lumene
- Make Up Store
- NYX
- Paul Mitchell
- Real Techniques
- Sante
- Urban Decay (UD products are only available on physical stores in Helsinki, Tampere and Oulu and on their online shop)
- Weleda
- Ziaja


PS: NYX and Urban Decay's parent company is L'oreal, however they do not conduct animal tests nor sell in China; bareMinerals is a cruelty-free brand, but the company's owned by Shiseido. Also some of their brushes are not cruelty-free!

Groceries shopping at K-Citymarket Kupittaa

Today I went to K-Citymarket in Kupittaa to get some food for the week. I had heard they had a good range of vegan products there, so my boyfriend and I decided to go there and check it out. Boy, was I happy?? They had soooo many alternatives. Different types of dairy free cheese, milk, food creams, yoghurt, lots of meat alternatives and nice prices on their organic veggies.

Totally worth the trip (we live on the opposite side of the city :$)!

Here are some of the things I got:

Everything in the picture is vegan friendly and bought there. Except for the Wilmerburgers pizza cheese which I got at Prisma Länsikeskus :) yummy!

KC Professional

KC professional is a finnish brand with a large range of different products for your hair. They have everything from shampoo to styling to hair dyes. The products can be found basically in every store in Finland.

I have used some of their products in the past (like their color masks and styling products) and I must say they're REALLY good. So I decided to do some research reguarding their animal testing policies etc.

This is what they say about their environmental policy:

"Our Finnish product families Four Reasons, No nothing Very Sensitive and Biosystem are manufactured primarily in Finland and Northern Europe, so smaller amounts of carbon-dioxide exhaust is created during transport. The factory that manufactures these products is ISO-14001 environmentally certified and uses green power, as well as methodically minimizing its impact on the environment. We have not tested or had our KC Professional products or their ingredients tested on animals."

So, I was still not 100% sure and decided to contact them on Facebook.

"Hello,
I've been a big fan of your products but I recently went vegan so I have a few questions!

Are your products cruelty-free, so to say, do you test on animals (including the ingredients)? Also, is any of your products vegan friendly (contains no animal products)?

Thank you.

Best regards,
Renata Gustafsson"
Here's what they answered.

"Dear Renata,

Thanks for your email and intrerest referring to our KC Professional products. Nice to hear that you have liked our products;).

All animal tests have been prohibited by law since 2009 and we nor our manufacturers have carried out any new animal tests. However there may have been used such ingredients within our products that have been tested years go when these tests were obligatory and more common.

Most of our products are vegan friendly. There may be some ingredients we have not received 100 % proof of it's origin so that's why we have not marked yet products with vegan friendly symbol. We receive queries of this nature a lot so we may consider having such information in future, too.

With best wishes,
KC Professional"It sounds to me like they're good to go! :)

On their website it's possible to get the list of all the ingredients used in their products. I checked the ingredients for their hair dye Four Reasons in the colour 4.1 Espresso Brown. After googling every ingredient on the list I came to the conclusion that it looks like it is vegan, except for the Palmitic Acid, which according to Google can be found in butter, milk etc. So just to be sure I decided to contact them again. They still haven't answered me but as soon as they do, I'll make sure to make an update.



For more info about their products, check their website.

xx :)

IDUN: Norrsken - Liquid Mineral Foundation

I have been trying different foundations from budget to luxury brands, liquid to creamy. All types, all formulas, many different brands, you name it. I have very dry and sensitive skin (I easily get rashes on my face) and God knows how much I struggled to find the perfect foundation!

After som research, I came across this foundation by a swedish mineral makeup brand called IDUN. Now I had always been skeptical of mineral makeup, I don't know why but I always had this idea that they just weren't my cup of tea, but since I was desperate, I needed a good foundation. I had two criterias: 1. It had to be cruelty-free, and 2. it had to be liquid.

I went to the pharmacy and first thing I noticed when I started swatching this foundation was that it was very moisturizing. It didn't feel heavy on my skin, it just felt really soft and blendable. I was also amazed by the shade range. It has eight different shades (Jorunn is the lightest one and Embla is the darkest). I'm a pretty pale chick and for once I didn't have to pick the most pale shade, yay! I bought it in the shade Freja, which is a light warm tone.

IDUN apparently has a special brush which was designed to apply this foundation with, but I like using a beautyblender to get a flawless finish. For a matte look, I always set it with a face powder and of course, with a setting spray once I'm done doing my makeup.

PROS:
+ It's cruelty-free and vegan.
+ It's free from preservatives, silicones, talc, perfumes and nanoparticles. Which is really good if you have sensitive skin.
+ It doesn't make my face look cakey.
+ It doesn't feel heavy on my skin.
+ Good variety of light shades!

CONS:
- You need to set it with a powder in order to make it matte. Now this is not a problem for me cause I do that anyway, no matter what foundation I use, but keep in mind that it doesn't have a matte finish.
-  It costs around 27-30 euros. It's cheap compared to many other brands but it is also not in a drugstore price range.
- It's really good if you're pale, but if you have a darker skin tone it might be a problem to find a shade.
- Light - medium coverage. It is buildable though, but still if you're looking for a full coverage foundation, then this is not for you.

Where to buy?
I bought mine at a local pharmacy here in Turku, but I believe you can order it online from Yliopiston Apteeki's webshop!

Moi!

I'm bad at this whole blogging thing but I thought I could give it a try.

Hi, my name is Renata, I'm 23 years old. I was born in Brazil and raised in Sweden. I moved to Tampere, Finland, two years ago to work as an au-pair with this lovely family. I stayed with them for 9 months and in 2015 I moved in with my boyfriend in Turku, where I still live.

I was a vegetarian and, later on, vegan for many, many years but went on a "break" for about 2 years (shame on me, yes, I know). I recently went back to start my cruelty-free lifestyle all over. As I went back to it, I first thought it was so so difficult to find information in english (or swedish) about where to get vegan food in restaurants, where to shop for groceries, cruelty-free makeup/beauty products etc. So that is the reason why I decided to start this blog, so I can maybe help those of you who, like me, don't speak finnish.

I will mainly post about products and restaurants in Turku, since that is where I live. I will also be posting about cruelty-free makeup/beauty brands available in Finland, and maybe some food recipes as well.


So yeah, I hope I can get this blog going and that it will be helpful for someone out there. :)

xx