Red Apple Lipstick Samples Review

From left to right: Red Apple Lipstick samples Hibiscus, Drama, Back to the Fuchsia, Barcelona

One company has been on my mind lately: Red Apple Lipstick - henceforth RAL. Out of more than 40 amazing shades, I own a few samples and later ordered some tubes, all which I've been impressed with. I have the following samples for review here (they're $3.50 each):

Hibiscus
Drama
Barcelona
Back To The Fuchsia

Hibiscus, Drama, Back to the Fuchsia, Barcelona

From the samples, which are generous, these are luxurious, well-pigmented, quality lipsticks. They come with a little black RAL lip brush, which I found to be a nice touch. I don't have any known or obvious allergens, but these lipstick formulas great for allergy sufferers and people sensitive to gluten. Even celiacs can use this product, which is marvelous. They feel so good on your lips, almost like you're wearing nothing, but better. The formulas are just right in the moisturizing department it feels like whenever you put on these lipsticks on, your lips are getting a hug.

Before applying each lipstick shade, I used Burt's Bees Nourishing Lip Balm with Mango Butter. Also, each shade was applied using my own Ecotools lip brush from the Lovely Looks collection.

For reference, I'm posting pictures of my natural lip color, which is a pinkish brown:

no lipstick; natural lip color is pinky brown (pink with brown liner), inside

natural lip color, outdoors

Hibiscus only - in natural light

Hibiscus is a pinkish red which a healthy dose of raspberry. Such a cute name too! At first, I thought this would be a bright fuchsia pink. I was still intrigued, so I bit the bullet (ahem) and bought the sample. This color is beautiful and doesn't look like anything I've ever owned before. It's an alternative to red - with my medium/deep tan complexion it looks great, enlivening it. The formula is smooth and lasts long. I really enjoyed wearing this lipstick shade, and it helped make me feel pretty and confident - must be the reddish undertones. Hibiscus is in the Instant Color (nut-free) formula. 

At $23.50 a tube of lipstick the price may seem a bit steep, but the quality and customer service are top-notch. I feel many people pay much for an inferior product with toxic chemicals at department stores. There are many cosmetic companies which charge more than $23 for sub-par ingredients. The longevity of these shades straight of the tube is good (4 hours or so), but can be enhanced by proper technique, which RAL owner Jay Harper talks about when you sign up to become a RAL VIP. When you do, you get plenty of discounts as well.

Hibiscus inside with artificial light

Here I'm combining two Red Apple Lipstick (RAL) shades: Hibiscus & Coral Crush

As for Drama, I wasn't too crazy about it at first. As a college student in the late nineties, I feel I wore too much brown for too long. Drama has brown undertones but it has something else, something alluring - a soft (is it plum?) sheen which I really like. The formula is long-lasting but also doesn't feel dry. This can work as a more sophisticated boardroom shade - I can imagine wearing a suit and delivering a neat presentation with Drama. For fairer skin, it may be more of an evening shade. As much as I like this shade, I think I'm going to hold off buying a tube until fall as I have built up a decent collection and want to use up all my samples before I do. Drama is in the X-series (nut-free) formula. I've read on other sites some people think the X-series is a bit drying, but I haven't noticed this as my lips are generally not super dry and I used a lip balm before each application. I believe it's good to moisturize your lips before applying any lipstick.

Drama indoors

Drama outdoors

Barcelona is a medium brownish red which is the least pigmented of the bunch. It's soft enough to wear for every day for my complexion, but for someone with lighter skin tones it may be better for going out. I feel like it's soft enough to wear for a work, and assertive enough for a night on the town. I do think the name is exciting and adds to the lipstick. Barcelona is in the RAL Instant Color (nut-free) formula.

Barcelona indoors

Barcelona outdoors

My favorite of the bunch has to be Back to The Fuchsia: a rich, pigmented, fun fuchsia color with the coolest name! It's a long-lasting, smooth and moisturizing shade which instantly brightens both my complexion - and mood! Since I'm in my purplish tone period, I'm definitely going to have to get a whole bullet! It's lighter than RAL's After Hours, which I prefer to wear at nighttime. Back to the Fuchsia is a RAL Satin (nut-free) formula.

Back to The Fuchsia indoors 

Back to The Fuchsia outdoors

Update on Non-Toxic and Natural Makeup Brands

Since my February 10 post, I've done much more research on natural and non-toxic makeup brands. I'm focusing on makeup now, but when I run out of my Origins skincare samples, I'll venture into the nontoxic skincare products as well. Even though I know Origins is not technically a nontoxic company (see this beautypedia company post and this list of greenwashing companies by the Green Beauty Team), I can't bring myself to toss those samples. My parents raised me to not be wasteful. As soon as I finish them, I'm breaking up with Origins for good. I'm disappointed not only in the brand but in myself for not researching properly and trusting blindly. I admit I'm also not proud of the fact that I fell - hard - for the nature-friendly advertising - trees are my favorite objects in nature! I've been using Origins since the late nineties, albeit sporadically. Now I'm going to use makeup more, I'm much more careful what I put on my skin.

We must move on and not beat ourselves up, so I'm looking ahead and changing everything about my makeup and skincare. I have three children I love dearly and want to stay healthy and as toxic-free as possible. What I look for in a beauty company:

- natural, non-toxic ingredients avoiding at least 90% or all of these toxic ingredients
- products that work well
- not tested on animals
- aesthetically pleasing packaging
- not outrageously expensive (I will not pay $40 for a tube of lipstick.)
- no FD&C dyes

Disclaimer: I don't mind carmine. Yes, I know what it's made of. Doesn't bother me. If it did, I'd be a vegan and not eat jello either. I'm omnivorous and prepare jello about once a year in the summer.

In the last post, I wrote a list of non-toxic companies I was considering. Since then I've revised some, and have allowed myself a bit of leeway here and there. This week, I'm putting down a list of makeup products I currently own, and makeup brands I haven't tried yet but am eager to.


Makeup and beauty products I currently own and love:

1. Pure Anada foundations and skincare products
2. Red Apple Lipstick lipsticks (my favorite samples are Back to the Fuchsia and Hibiskiss)
3. Silk Naturals vegan matte lipsticks (I own two - Marsala and Canoodle, both of which contain no FD&C dyes)
4. Alima Pure's Honey Rose blush (so silky and beautiful - haven't tried their foundations yet, but I've read excellent things about them)
5. Pacifica Midnight Smolder eyeliner gel

Makeup Brands I currently own and are hit-or-miss, either in performance or ingredients:

1. Physician's Formula (ingredients - there are good choices, but you need to read labels carefully)
2. Honeybee Gardens (performance - lipstick color way off from what's advertised and delicate consistency of lipstick - my first one broke off at the base on the first day I tried it. I'm receiving a replacement. The company has been very gracious about it.)

Makeup Brands I'm eager to sample from:

1. Lily Lolo - especially the mascara and lipstick (Romantic Rose and/or Parisian Pink)
2. Nudus (lipsticks - especially 27 Kisses and/or Just Like Jade)
3. Au Naturale lipstick
4. Inside and Out organic lipsticks (ordered a box of samples here)

I don't think I'm going to try Lotus anymore. Something about the advertising and I don't know.. Just don't trust something about this company. The ingredients seem to be a bit elusive as well. It's just a gut feeling, nothing else. Let me know if Lotus works for you in the comments!

I don't feel the need for Zosimos Botanicals' products right now, especially with two nice lipsticks from Silk Naturals, but I'll keep them in mind for the future if the need arises. I have to say there are only two of the Silk Naturals lipsticks I'd get, as the rest either don't match my skintone or have FD&C dyes if you are concerned about that.

Do you see any of your favorites? Any natural makeup brands and products you'd like to try? Is there a brand you think I should take a look at? Let me know in the comments.

Natural, Non-Toxic Make-Up (Makeup) Brands

I've recently gotten into natural, non-toxic make-up -henceforth makeup for ease and convenience. In my quest for truly non-toxic products, I found natural means different ingredients to different people. Others are concerned about being cruelty-free - a worthy goal - but without caring much about the safety of beauty products for general health. Others are the opposite. Ideally, all beauty products would be cruelty-free and non-toxic, but until Monsanto gives up its hold on US agriculture and Trump's hair looks great, we have to settle for sleuthing each and every product we encounter.

I also learned natural doesn't mean products are going to be good for skin or not toxic for you. There are plenty of toxic, natural ingredients in nature - poisonwood oils anyone?

As a result of my research, I came across multiple brands I had never heard of. I also saw some familiar ones. Origins is not as non-toxic as I'd thought previously. This is a brand I'd been using for years, albeit sporadically as just recently, at the ripe old age of 39, I started using makeup regularly again. Why, you ask? Why the sudden interest in makeup when I wasn't interested since my first makeup experiences in early adolescence? (With the nasty smells and icky applications of the early nineties, that past interest died a quiet death.)

It all started when I received Origins trial skincare sets for my birthday. So exciting! I'd mentioned I loved Checks & Balances frothy face wash and I was only too glad to start using it again. It's the best face wash I've ever used. It leaves my skin feeling clean, refreshed, not dry, and a little goes a looong way. I bet that trial size is going to last me six months.

My Origins gift also includes Andrew Weil skincare products, which smell fine with essential oils, but stings my skin. After washing my face every day, I felt so clean and moisturized. There was this ball coming up soon and alas, my Origins makeup was too old. Off to get new makeup. The subject of my budget-conscious (hastily made) natural make-up choices is best left for another post.

This post is about the natural, non-toxic brands I was exposed to and I either ordered (first three) or I'm ordering samples from in the near future (the rest):

1. Honeybee Gardens (ordered samples, currently using several lipstick colors, including Burlesque, and the mineral pressed foundation)
2. Red Apple Lipstick (several sample shades, including Back To The Fuchsia, plus the Rallye Lip Balm)
3. Pure Anada (ordered several liquid foundations and two lipstick colors, including Sienna)
4. Physicians Formula (bought at my local drugstore)
5. Alima Pure 
6. Pacifica 
7. Silk Naturals
8. Zosimos Botanicals
9. Living Nature
10. Zuzu Luxe
11. Ecco Bella
12. Lotus

Facebook Socializing: Not Just A Face Part II

The Change

Before the Internet hit the scene in a big way, people were lamenting the loss of socializing in the olden days. Of communal living, of evenings spent on the porch having meaningful conversations,  of stimulating intellectual discourse, of heart to heart talks with intimate friends. Before radio and TV, people used to spend more time just talking to each other, relating to one another. Blame was also heaped on urban sprawl, the soul-deadening suburban subculture, longer work hours, the disappearance of small, friendly neighborhoods, the slow death of long, handwritten letters and the written word.

Then came the Internet - and it came in a big way. People started going on forums, finding connection in a novel way, and reading and writing, albeit in a different form. Like the sublimely adaptive creatures we are, we took it and made it ours, and as technology influenced us we influenced back and have morphed it into something that fifteen years ago we wouldn't have imagined. Well, maybe Steve Jobs and a few others did, but the vast majority would have no idea how rapid and immediate the effects of the new Information Age would hit us.

Singles who had difficulty in meeting others could meet online, face unseen, and had to have a leap of trust. They did, and in droves. Friendships were formed, weddings were planned, we shared product reviews and frustrations and all of a sudden we connected again. Critics complained about the lack of humanity in these interactions, citing that cyberspace was no place to be truly human.

How Facebook Reinvented - and Revitalized - Socializing

As society became more fragmented, especially in the big cities, people started growing more and more apart. Everyone was busy with their own lives, whether building a career, working long hours just to get by, raising families, or caring for others, that isolation started to set in. "I haven't talked to my dear high school friend in years." "I wonder what happened to Sara." But we moved on with our lives, the Internet's people tracking devices too time-consuming and complicated to truly dig those people out for many.

When Facebook burst into the scene in 2004, it was the ideal vehicle for youth's narcissism and vehicle for peer tracking that college students desired. No wonder then that the idea was birthed in a Harvard college dorm.

Facebook was no MySpace. Whereas MySpace had a complicated, somewhat unattractive interface, Facebook was fresh, clean, and personal. MySpace had a feeling of being outdated very quickly. The "Like" button revolutionized personal connection. How else would you know that your high school friend who lives across the world likes India Arie as much as you do? Or know where your dear high school friend is in the first place? 

Many people have reconnected after years of living hundreds, if not thousands of miles apart. Others live a mile away but have never shared anything but casual talk and now are finding themselves surprised and amused by the other's interests, preferences, likes, and are much better able to form a composite of that person. I know, I know, we are not just a collection of likes and dislikes as this may sound. And many people are guarded on Facebook. However, many people also let go of some inhibitions on Facebook and feel free to blast their ranting about life on their status. What frustrates them, what excites them, what amuses them, what they find intellectually stimulating. In real life, you may never get to that conversation. 

At midnight in the privacy of your own home you can admire pictures of a dear friend you haven't seen in twenty years, comfort another who was just diagnosed with breast cancer, congratulate another who just found out she's having a baby, wish a coworker a happy birthday, find out about the separation of that couple you wanted to have dinner with, see what real life social events are around you to attend, watch an uplifting video a cousin recommended, and discover the finer points of your partner's religious inclination. This is not TV. These are real people, real lives, and albeit shared on the Internet, more interactive than an imaginary video game or TV show.

All this is fodder for more conversation in real life. "Hey, Martha, I never knew you were into knitting. I knit myself." "Jim, I liked the video you posted. That was my favorite song growing up." "Gloria, if you need to talk, I'm here for you. Call me." If Facebook makes you reach out to people more, you are using it as a tool of socializing, not as your only source.

Instead of lamenting the spread of technology, why not embrace our adaptive qualities and transform this technology to our advantage and use it to enhance socialization, not hamper it? I believe Facebook could be used, like anything else, in a good way or in a bad way. The point is, at least consider the possibility that it can help foster togetherness in the real sense, a sense of connection.

Facebook Socializing: Not Just A Face Part I

Facebook is here to stay. What it is about socializing online that is so appealing to us? Perhaps it's because we really get to know the people we "friend". In ways that we wouldn't have dreamed of knowing them. In fact, I argue that in some ways Facebook has helped us get in touch with people on a level deeper than sometimes we have hoped to achieve by merely spending time together in real life in our own busy, preoccupied lives. Facebook may help us reconnect with our own and fellow human beings' humanity. This of course, means that you may want to be careful who you friend. Next time you are considering accepting the friend request of the crazy cat lady down the block, determine first whether you would like to know more of her love life, her most cherished values, favorite childhood songs and political opinions.

When we socialize in real life, as busy parents and workers, we tend to compartmentalize. Let me explain. Say you are a mother of two who spends her time picking up her two children from school and from dance and martial arts classes. Once a month you go on a girls night out. Once every two weeks you go on dates with your husband. Fact of life: This may be all the socializing you get for a few years. Now let us go into each department and quality of friends in each category.

Picking up children from school

You either a) drive around in the car and pick them up, no contact with other adults or b) walk inside the school or stand outside and talk for a few minutes before school lets out. Of course, those of us who pick up our children coming from the school bus may meet a few adults on the way, or not. In that time, any conversation is usually either idle chat about the weather or schools or teachers, perhaps an issue is child is experiencing, whether learning or behavioral. It's unlikely you will get very far, as the child comes in and you're off in different directions. There is not enough time to really converse.

Extracurricular activities

Picking up children from activities is pretty similar, except that the occasional lucky outgoing mom gets a chance to wait around with another mom and really have a conversation. Even then, the topics tend to float around the same theme - the children, the class, school, the odd political comment. Unless a concerted effort is made to further expand the relationship, this is all it amounts to. This, of course, is for most people. I'm generalizing here. But that's just the point. I'm speaking in general terms.

Girls' Night Out

Most, if not all women, want to have fun and forget for a few hours the cares of the household, parenting, even marriage. Women want to relax, recharge, feel like a woman again, reconnect with their friends. Many, however, go about this in the less than ideal fashion. Going out drinking at bars and partying all night may satisfy the youthful vixen that's been lying dormant since you left your college days behind, however, it won't help you connect deeply with your friends. Human beings are wired to reach out, to connect, to want to have hearts and minds meet in a meaningful way. Whether we like to admit or not, our cavemen around the campfire days are not over. We may have blindingly fast-moving technology, but that doesn't mean that we still don't long for human connection at the most basic level. 

To be continued in Next Post..

The Middle Passage

How many inhuman atrocities have been committed during this sad part of our history? We shall never know.

This powerful undersea sculpture reminds us of the humanity during the injustices, the spirit of those who perished. We are important, we are not forgotten. We are united. That's what I believe they are saying in this moving piece of artwork. I couldn't agree more.

First Coin Minted With Augmented Reality

A new Aruban coin is out now, first in the world minted with Augmented Reality technology, which means that anyone with a smartphone can scan the coin and get information on whatever is on the coin. In this case it's the endangered Aruban shoco (owl). It looks pretty nifty to me. Minted by the Royal Dutch Mint and only 2,500 released, it's sure to be desired by collectors. Check out this article describing it:

http://www.coinsweekly.com/en/News/4?&id=1342