Indie Beauty Expo 2017 - Clean Beauty is coming to the mainstream

Indie Beauty Expo 2017 - Clean Beauty is coming to the mainstream

We visited Indie Beauty Expo this year with our friends from Los Feliz Botanicals (all-natural botanical perfumes). The Los Angeles event was held at the California Market Center in Downtown LA, in the Penthouse on the 13th floor. Glam was everywhere, but with a focus on clean, pure, and natural brands, we can't help but see the trend of clean beauty becoming mainstream.

Our first stop was at Los Feliz Botanicals, where founder Krystal Quinn Castro was offering up a free facial mist bar for anyone to make their own customized facial mist/ toner. Using pure organic hydrosols (hydrosols are floral plant waters left over after distilling essential oils), we blended aloe, Frankincense, Myrrh and Rose Geranium in a tiny glass spray bottle. Clear quartz crystals in the bottom helped emulsify the mixture.

The adorable packaging for Krystal's line has photos of local road trip favorites (Joshua Tree!) and silk-screened bottles with her geo-modern logo.

Packaging aside, her perfumes smell GOOD. Our favorites are the "Los Feliz" (notes of sweet honey, amber and jasmine), and the "Yucca Valley" (roses, leather, tobacco). As with any 100% natural perfume, it won't last all day, but the fragrant essential oils will stick around for about 4 hours. Bonus - essential oil based perfumes smell like the pure plants they came from, and will not irritate the skin or nose. If you are allergic to traditional chemical perfumes, give natural ones a try. We now carry all Los Feliz Botanicals perfumes and perfume balms in our No Tox Life retail store in Glassell Park.

Also in the perfume category, Ojai Wild debuted their line of 100% natural, handmade extract perfumes. These were extremely earthy, clean scents made using redwood, local sage, juniper berry, and other plants found on their California farm. Ojai Wild has not yet launched online sales, but you can follow them on Instagram here.

Several skincare brands at Indie Beauty Expo had a focus on one key ingredient. Love pistachios? A fan of honey? Turmeric-happy? There's a skincare line for you. Pistache is a family-owned skincare line made with pistachio oil from their family farm. Pistachio oil is high in beneficial acids. Their line is not 100% natural, but has better ingredients than most drugstore products.

The founder of ULIV skincare boldly displayed only one item at the expo, and got plenty of retail and press attention.  She created a beautiful smelling facial soufflé using turmeric root, a key ingredient in her health regimen when she was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease. Yes, you can put turmeric on your face! (We like using our Turmeric Ginger body bar made from upcycled juice pulp).

Honey Girl Organics products are made in small batches in Hawaii, using organic and natural ingredients. No chemical fillers or toxic ingredients here, plus wild Hawaiian honey! Not vegan, but with the benefits of raw honey (antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and more).

The show had a hangout section in the middle with free water in eco-friendly boxes (no plastic bottles!). Lavender neon lighting set the mood for an elegant event.

Florists Thistle & Seed sponsored a lovely flower crown bar at the event. They were in high demand all day making custom crowns for attendees and vendors.

Erbaviva skincare has been creating natural & organic products for 20 years - they were also just featured in LeafTV's Year Of Wellness subscription box, alongside our Aluminum Free Natural Deodorant! Loved their simple and natural take on skincare basics.

Amazonia beauty had the most unique packaging at the expo - wooden bottles laser engraved with the label design and ingredients. The owner said she spent several years developing the products so she wanted a package design that would communicate how luxurious the formulas are. Buying her own laser engraving machine was probably not the most economical choice, but a the final effect was worth it!

One last brand we loved was Crystal Hills Organics - luxurious oils and bath salts infused with crystals. They created a stunning display covered in jewels and crystals to compliment their line. Each product was 100% natural using only essential oils, natural plant oils, clays and salts.

There were around 200 total vendors at the event, so it was a full day visiting each booth. Hair care, nail polish, makeup lines, rockabilly-themed products - so many more vendors we could talk about. Overall, Indie Beauty Expo was a fun event and worth seeing! We are happy to see so many new brands taking the natural route with their products. Our prediction - in the next 10 years natural skincare will be completely mainstream and you will be able to find truly natural options at any major drugstore and even superstores like Target and Walmart. The sheer numbers of people supporting local, natural, handmade products will force the big brands to adapt to the marketplace demand, or go under.

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