Danielle: This week, we're talking about beauty for your eco-friendly wedding. We're here with Jessa Blades from Blades Natural Beauty and she's gonna show us how to make you beautiful in the most eco-friendly skin-safe way for your very special day. Hey, Jessa.
Jessa: Hi. How are you doing?
Danielle: Good. Thank you so much for joining us.
Jessa: You're welcome.
Danielle: What makes something hold up to par for you?
Jessa: It's all about the ingredients and it's turning over every product and looking at what it is the actual product ingredient list because there currently are no labeling or ingredient regulations for the government. The FDA doesn't touch beauty. It's totally crazy.
Danielle: It's crazy.
Jessa: So they can say natural. They can say organic. That really doesn't mean anything.
Danielle: Tell me how you reconcile and how you approach it, especially wedding day beauty?
Jessa: Yeah, maybe two or three months before, maybe, you should change maybe your skincare to a more sustainable healthier line. But you shouldn't be doing that right before your wedding because you could have a reaction to these products and to any sort of new line. And you should also be thinking about like a waterproof mascara for your wedding, if you're planning on crying. Those are not green. There are no sustainable waterproof mascaras but it should just be easy. And you should not really have to compromise like something like a waterproof mascara or crying or on how your eyelashes look.
Danielle: We all want to be able to cry at our wedding.
Jessa: Yeah. Just to prove a point that you want to be green. I mean, as far as lipsticks, wearability of those, if you reapply, green makeup is just as good. I think natural beauty is really about thoughtful beauty and it's about making choices that are safer for yourself for the long haul.
Danielle: What about brides who aren't lucky enough to be here in New York to work with you? How do they find someone who is offering these services?
Jessa: If they go into the environmental working group, Skin Deep Database, they can research products that are safer, the ones that they currently use or ones that they're curious about using. And they can find different lines that they want to work with. And so if they can't find a totally green natural makeup artist, they can ask the makeup artist to maybe pursue some of these brands or some of these lines that they're curious about trying.
Danielle: What kind of products would you recommend? What are some of your favorite ones?
Jessa: My favorite is Jane Iredale ... amazing. It's a mineral line. It's really great. They've been around for a while. They've done a lot of their homework and they're really great and the colors are just as beautiful as normal mainstream makeup. I also really like a new line called RMS Beauty. It's wonderful. [indistinct] is an old standby favorite and they have beautiful colors and they're easier to find. And there are a lot of great websites online, too, where you can see these products and a lot of them send out samples. The Nature Beauty is one that's really great. Future Naturals is also really great. So you can sort of do the research and then go to a store like maybe a Whole Foods will have the products and you can actually try them out.