Drugstore Mascara

For me to find a single non-toxic mascara at CVS took over three hours. Because its function is to directly address your eyes, an especially sensitive area, mascara opens up a whole other realm of toxic possibilities.

It was easy enough to find a clean and quality non-drug store mascara, but the one I recommend is $29. For most people spending nearly $30 on a tube of mascara is absurd. My middle school and high school was right off my town' central street, Plandome road. In fifth through eighth grade, the thing to do with your friends was "go into town" after school on Fridays. After we hit up the Starbucks, we always went to CVS, (formerly Right Aid, currently Walgreens), and bought mascara for less than $20, considering $20 was all our parents gave us. How are you going to tell a 12-year-old girl, you need to spend a minimum $30 on mascara to get a decent one that won't harm your insides?

Additionally, accessibility is important. What is drug store makeup best at? Being accessible. When someone needs a product in a pinch or just wants to get one easily without ordering online, they go to their drug store. For me to find a single non-toxic mascara at CVS took over three hours and multiple trips to CVS.

I combed through every single tube of mascara, looking up each of their ingredients. Each and every tube of mascara? Gross. The 'Cover Girl Clean Line' is the epitome of fake news. Fuck that bullshit. False advertising. Don't fall for it. It contains multiple ingredients that are proven carcinogens.

After my first attempt, I thought I had failed. I spent hours scrounging through drugstore makeup, and not a single clean mascara exists?!?! Luckily, this Aries don't accept defeat. Through more internet scrounging, I found L'Oréal Voluminous Noir Bomb. Not Panorama, not waterproof, not curved brush, not even carbon black, - Noir Balm. Only $12.99 a tube, and it actually works!!!

2/10 on EWG and 93/100 on Yuka. Could definitely be better, but this is the only safe, ethical, nontoxic mascara I could find at CVS. It has denatured alcohol, aka ethanol, which is a big no-no for human consumption. It's been made unfit for human consumption by combining alcohol with other chemicals. Said other chemicals and ingredients to denature the alcohol do not legally have to be reported. Thus, it's not on labels, and we, the consumers, have legit no idea what we're buying. Just another day of shopping in the US of A! It contains sodium hydroxide, which isn't loved by the EU and the US's CIR (Cosmetics Ingredient Review). However, in low enough concentrations, it is permitted and legal.

Disregarding our one, single saving grace, this should open up a much broader conversation. Why was it so fucking hard for me to find one ethical non-toxic mascara for less than $15? Why is it so difficult and expensive to both protect oneself while adhering to the female beauty standards that society has created? Ya'll are lucky it's good and high quality because I didn't have a single other non-toxic drugstore mascara to compare it to. FDA and capitalism, we got to talk.

Also, Covergirl, step to me - do you think women's health is a joke?