NATURAL MAKE-UP REVIEW – Zuii Organic ‘Vanilla Frost’ and ‘Jade’ Eyeshadow
It’s Make up Monday again – so here is another natural make up review for you! Zuii is another of those natural make up brands I looked at many times when I was in the Health food store ... should I , shouldn’t I... nah too expensive.
What if I pick a product I don’t like? It’s just too much money to lose. I really liked the sound of the products though so I wrote to the manufacturer and asked if there was any where I could get a makeover with their products so I could find out which ones worked for me. They sent me a friendly response with a list of their stockists which didn’t really help at all (I already knew where they were stocked) so I forgot about Zuii.
Many months later I noticed that Zuii stock were marked half price in the local Go Vita Toormina and shortly after were discontinued in Kombu Bellingen too. I asked the shop owners about it and they said that Zuii just didn’t sell well. I reluctantly bought a couple of reduced items out of curiosity – I didn’t have high hopes. I mean, if no one was buying them then they must suck, right??
Zuii Organic ‘Vanilla Frost’ and ‘Jade’ Eyeshadow
What a pleasant surprise I got. These products rock! (or raq, he he) They are a compressed powder eyeshade in a 1.5gram black circular, screw top container. The screw top bit is both great and terrible. It means it doesn’t spill when travelling but is a bit fiddly for everyday. The truly great thing about these eye shadows is that they have excellent pigmentation with a bit of a shimmer. Yep, you can use them for stage and actually see them!! Hurrah! Natural
effective – it can be done apparently.
The vanilla is not quite white. I chose it because it was in the reduced basket and I had recently been experimenting with stronger highlights under the brow, inner eye and water line. I got the idea of colouring the water line from a Misschevious video on youtube and while I doubt the long term safety of continually putting products on the water line (i.e. above lower lashes), if you have had a really poor night’s sleep and have red rimmed eyes but need to perform then it works a treat to make you look less haggard. The white I had tried out previously (out of a cheap and nasty palette of colours) seemed to irritate my eye a little but this doesn’t seem to make the eye feel as gritty.
Jade is a jade green colour that is very vibrant and again very suitable for performances, night wear and general showiness. It is probably a bit over the top for everyday unless applied lightly and played down with more neutral or blending tones.
I applied both shades using artists’ brushes (my favourite tools of the trade and all I could get that were decent where I lived before I became such an online shopper). Both applied well with minimum fallout. They travel well – i.e. they didn’t crumble to pieces when knocked around in my bag and are basically the best natural eyeshadows I have tried yet.
Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? It was tedious but as Zuii products have not been independantly reviewed by the EWG, I went through each listed ingredient and ran it through the EWG safety in cosmetics website. It scored very well indeed with most ingredients getting a 0 (the best rating) with the highest score of 2-3 for zinc oxides. It is the safest ratings I have so far found for a cosmetic product so I am impressed again.
I have to get really pedantic to find a problem here and the only fly in the ointment is the organic certification. Apparently last year there was a bit of an online uproar about Zuii advertising itself as USDA Certified Organic. There was some finger pointing by the USDA at the Australian certifying body involved and they concluded that The Organic Food Chain (TOFC) had made errors in its certification and that Zuii products did not meet their standards (see here for more info).
The products remain Australian Certified Organic however but it is a shame that Zuii picked TOFC as their certifier, from my investigations they are one of the least respected certifying bodies in Australia and have certified many businesses that were de-certified by other certifying bodies. Oh well, it is unlikely Zuii knew this and the eye shadow is still the best natural product I have tried.
I liked them so much I have rushed out and bought 3 other shades and several other Zuii products from the half price sales and will review them here for you soon.
My summary
(5 stars being the best)
: Zuii Organic ‘Vanilla Frost’ and “Jade’Eyeshadow
: 5
: 4.5
: 5
: $21.75 AUD ea (I paid $10.50ea)
: 1.5g or .052oz
: yes (if lightly applied)
: Oh yeah!!!
Overall Star rating: 5 !!!
With online shopping most products can be purchased from anywhere in the world but if you are after American natural make up reviews then I would like to recommend the excellent “glamorganic goddess” blog.
Have you used these products? What did you think? I love comments please comment below.
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