You know that I have raved about 100% Pure as a healthier cosmetic option for us. Ladies, I know the MAC Cosmetics counter may call out to you, but the chemicals in many of their products should send you running screaming down the sidewalk. Green cosmetics companies have advanced their technologies to be as amazing as all the “yuckys.”

100% Pure has a variety of wonderful skin, hair and makeup products, albeit a bit on the “luxury” end of the spectrum. Some of my absolute favorites are the mascara, pigmented pomegranate lipsticks, lip gloss, and their selection of hair care products. It was great to go into an actual brick-and-mortar 100% Pure store to I could actually touch and feel some of the products I’d had my eye on online.

I even got to see one of my favorite Instagram green beauty bloggers, The Organic Bunny. I just found out she’s launched her own online store complete with her favorite clean beauty items. More on that (and her) later.

There were tons of people in the store, and the free mini makeovers drew a nice crowd and ladies were buying up goodies like they were giving them away; which technically, they were. For your purchase of $100 or more, you would walk out with a set of their amazing Ginseng Collagen Boost mask and their new Bamboo Blur Tinted Moisturizer. I was all excited to get my share and didn’t mind raking up the ching to get my gifts.

When it was time to get my goodies, one of the sales people regretfully told me that the darkest shade the tinted moisturizer came in was this…?

Really, 100% Pure? That’s the best you can do? It’s not; actually. They just don’t sell as many darker shades as they do lighter ones, because it seems that our white, Latina, and Asian sisters have gotten the memo that cleaner products reduce your risk of exposure to harmful and potentially hormone-disrupting and cancer-causing ingredients. Black women pass by shops like this, take a look at all the hullabaloo…

Take one look at how light the foundations are and the white and silver undertones of the eyeshadow palettes and keep it moving. They, understandably, feel like there’s nothing much in there for them. And the prophecy fulfills itself, because the lack of cosmetics with deep pigments keeps darker-hued women away and darker-hued women stay away because the cosmetics lack deeper pigments that compliment their complexion.

Somewhat abashed, the store manager saw the problem with pigment and gave me a complementary bottle of Fruit Pigmented Tinted Moisturizer in Cocoa, which happens to work for me, but is the darkest they go.

You’ve got to love that customer service!

Here’s my message to 100% Pure:

https://youtu.be/yx2ACUgPpuo

Now don’t get me wrong–their pigments are quite limited for us darker-skinned women, but other items in the line–the lipsticks and glosses, eyeliners, and mascaras are amazing. Their line of skin and hair care are excellent, and none of those items have anything to do with how light or dark you are. I picked up another Fruit Pigmented Lip Glaze in “Sultry,” and while light, I looked how it gave me a “sexy kitty” look.

The ongoing struggle for representation for women of color has been taken very seriously by Organic Bunny (aka Amanda) and she’s heard all the concerns and has worked to get companies onboard on her online store who have darker shades, but she’s expressed frustration because, while women LOVE to complain about stuff the DON’T get, when it is offered those things are often left to gather dust. If we want to be represented in the green beauty industry for the benefit of our health, we’re going to have to support those who provide the colors in our spectrum. Check out Organic Bunny’s online store here.

So let me take a moment to give a shout out to the natural makeup companies that DO carry our colors:

Blac Minerals (A++),

Alima Pure (A+),

Laws of Nature Cosmetics (A+).

Plain Jane Beauty (A+),

Au Naturale (B+),

Vapour (B-),

Root Pretty (A),

Gabriel Cosmetics/Zuzu (A+),