Foundation, concealer, eyeshadow, moisturizer, facial wash, primer, setting spray, and the list goes on. Women, including myself, put piles of none clean beauty products on our face, body, and hair daily. However when we break out, we put on more concealer; when we get red bumps, we put on more foundation; when we get itchy skin, we find a new lotion. However, more and more women and men are starting to realize, that red bumps, breakouts, itchy skin, and redness, are not “normal” things your body goes through. It is caused by the piles of chemicals we put on daily.

At ALT Summit in Palm Springs, I sat down with Cassandra McClure to discuss clean beauty. McClure hosts a podcast, called “Clean Beauty”. Before her podcast, she was a model and now is a celebrity makeup artist specializing in clean beauty. She saw first hand what the beauty industry cares about, and that is money.

By the pool at the Saguaro, McClure talked about her journey into cleaner and more sustainable makeup.

McClure life began in the Pacific Northwest, with her mother, step-father, and brother.

“My mom was a party stylist. I would go to wedding sites with her when I was little. At the weddings I would see brides get their makeup done,” shared McClure, “I also had a cousin at the time that worked at Sephora, when it just started. So she would do my makeup all the time and bring me products.”

Her love of makeup wasn’t her only passion as a child. She began to take photos. First with the once click cameras in elementary school, and then she upgraded to a more high tech camera.

“I was taking selfies before they were a thing. I realize I was photogenic and started to do some local modeling gigs,” shared McClure.

After high school, she moved to Los Angeles and became a professional model as well as attend beauty school. Throughout her artistry career, she would have watery eyes, redness, breakouts. Her doctor told her she had allergies and prescribe her medication. However, she realized it had to be more than allergies.

In 2017, she started her clean beauty journey. She did a detox and wore no makeup for a week and went through all her beauty items and household cleaning items. Then she tossed out everything with fragrance in it and soon her watery eyes were done, and her breakouts and redness were no more.

“A key ingredient to look out for is “fragrance,” “fragrance” is a beauty industry insider word. You don’t want that in your products, and it’s in everything,” shared McClure.

She began to rebuild her home with none fragrance products. McClure used the Beauty Counter, an online store that is the cleanest, most sustainable brand in the world that provides clean beauty alternative products. She chose to do trial and error with multiple products to see which ones work for her body. McClure soon became a consultant for Beautycounter.com.

While on her journey, McClure an avid podcast listener, realized there was not a lot of podcasts addressing clean beauty living. She also knew she could only share her story so much to Instagram.

“Instagram is so saturated, I decided to do a podcast, to get the word out,” shared McClure.

She decided to create her podcast called Clean Beauty. Building a podcast, taught McClure a slew of new skills. From setting up on multiple platforms, mixing, equipment setup and more.

On her podcast, she discusses clean beauty alternative. She talks about the struggle it is to find the best clean beauty products. Some products that were hard for her to find was deodorant, toothpaste, hairspray, shampoo, and clean eyelash glue.

“We couldn’t find a none fragrant eyelash glue, so my team and I are creating one,” shared McClure.

This eyelash glue will be McClure second product after her first product, LashBinder. It will be the first eyelash applicator that is safe and will help you apply your lashes with ease, (even if it’s your first time).

As our conversation came to an end I had to ask one final question. How does one begin a clean beauty routine without being harmful to the environment? Call it, my California hippie self.

“You can recycle some of the packagings. But check the recycle centers. Because most of them, want you to take apart the product yourself. If it’s made of mixed materials such as plastic, metal, etc.,” shared McClure.

So is clean beauty an elitist trend? No. It’s a way to go back to the basics. Cassandra McClure wants your skin to be healthy from the inside out. Who doesn’t love that?

Editor’s Note: You can join McClure at her first meetup in Tacoma on April 26th. You can also find her at the spa BottleRock in Napa on May 24th-26th