News

New York, Paris, London…NOVATO!

OK, the little hamlet of Novato in northern Marin County isn’t renowned for being a bustling beauty hub, but with the opening of the new Beauty Heroes flagship store, beauty-loving visitors to Wine Country have a new reason to take a quick detour.

A passion for ingredients

Beauty Heroes, a new brick-and-mortar luxury beauty store located downtown in the small but vivacious town of Novato — which happens to be where I’ve lived for the last 10 years! — is about 45 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge. They carry a bevvy of clean hair, skin and makeup products.

When Beauty Heroes began five years ago, they started as a subscription service and an online store, selling a pared-down selection of clean makeup, skin and hair products, all of which founder Jeannie Jarnot meticulously combed through ingredient and source lists to find.

And now, with their new flagship store, you can experience Beauty Heroes in person.

They remind me of San Francisco’s Credo Beauty, but with a very focused and specific approach, which they call their Beauty Product Ingredient Standard, to vetting the ingredients in the products they sell.

From beauty-heroes.com:

We are committed to our Beauty Product Ingredient Standard and review each product ingredient list in detail to determine that each product is:

• Free from ingredients banned in United States (a mere 11 individual chemicals)
• Free from ingredients banned in the European Union (an admirable 1,328 chemicals)
• Free from ingredients banned in Canada* (over 500 chemicals)
• Free from ingredients banned in Japan
• Free from ingredients that have gone through a process of ethoxylation (and has not been vacuum stripped and tested) which would put them at risk for contamination with 1,4 Dioxane, a known carcinogen. This includes phenoxyethanol and polyethylene glycols (listed as PEG’s for short on ingredient lists
• Free from Parabens. Since they aren’t banned for use in cosmetics the U.S., EU, Canada or Japan, parabens are still commonly used as an inexpensive preservative system. While preservatives are important for some products, there are much safer, better researched effective preservative systems.
• Free from Synthetic Fragrances. In order to avoid the fragrance loophole, we screen each product ingredient list for fragrance listed as an ingredient without disclosing the individual components.
• Free from any of the 20 most common and most harmful ingredients in cosmetics listed on our Villain Ingredient List.
• Free from ingredients that were tested on animals. In general, natural beauty brands don’t use ingredients you would ever consider testing on animals. But to be sure, each brand we work with ensures us that their not only have their products never tested, but the ingredients they source have never been subject to animal testing, either.
• Free from ingredients that have been genetically modified. We ask each brand to ensures us that the ingredients that they source are free from GMO’s

But Beauty Heroes isn’t just about what you put on your face and body. They also take their commitment to sustainable living a step further by offering other non-beauty products, like glass straws and clothing manufactured using sustainable processes, to help you live a cleaner, zero-waste lifestyle.

Stay, sip, play

Jeannie, the founder of Beauty Heroes, says that “Our store is really designed to be a play space,” and it includes a beauty lounge area where you can experience their “beauty flights,” a group of featured products you can try (like a wine flight). As you explore, you can also sip on botanical teas and infusions!

Ahhh…

Soon, the store will also be offering a treatment suite for facials, featuring the products they sell.

If you’re a blogger or a content creator, there’s a free “creator space” in the store, too, where you can film and shoot content!

Very cool.

Oh, and soon, a Blue Barn restaurant — otherwise known as “The Valhalla of Salad!” — will be opening next door, so, after you get your beauty fix, you can get your salad fix, too (no guarantees you’ll see Lars from Metallica, though).

I’m excited to see brands I’m familiar with, like Osmia, Axiology and Antonym, along with lines I’ve been wanting to try, like Josh Rosebrook and Ere Perez. I’m always down for an online shopping sesh, but there’s just something about being able to see, touch and smell things in person, especially with makeup, you know?

[Continue reading…]