Holiday Gift Guide Part 8 — For Nature Lovers And Eco-Minded Activists
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas — and, for those of us on the East Coast, it’s looking like a white Christmas at that! Over the course of the last three weeks, we’ve brought you gift ideas for quirky, adorkable girls, trend-setting city slickers, glamour-loving divas, ultra feminine and dainty types, rocker chicks, and more. But, of course, we couldn’t wrap up our holiday coverage without covering one major category: the eco-conscious lady. Sure, she may not be the type to chain herself to a tree to prevent it from being chopped down, but she may seek to enact change via the choices she makes in her everyday life — whether it’s adopting a vegan diet, minimizing her carbon footprint, supporting eco-friendly fashion and beauty brands, and investing in fascinating upcycled jewelry pieces and home décor items.
Here, you’ll find some gift ideas that make going green look red hot!
Burt’s Bees Beeswax Bounty Lip Balm Gift Set, $9.99. Available at Target stores.
Chapped lips are hardly conducive to tender pecks under the mistletoe and passionate kisses after toasting the arrival of a new year. Perfect for the season when pouts need to look their very best, this Burt’s Bees gift set features four tubes of the brand’s original Beeswax Lip Balm, a 100% natural conditioner formulated with beeswax and a hint of skin cooling, tingle-inducing peppermint oil. This adorable kit also comes with a woven paper change purse in which to carry your lip balm, as well as other essentials like mascara, gloss, ID, and credit cards.
TOMS Oahu Women’s Vegan Classics, $54. Available at TOMS.com
The brand known for its “one for one” philosophy has been tending to eco-minded customers practically since its inception, developing a line of TOMS Earthwise Sustainable shoes made with recycled and sustainable materials. These vegan-friendly classic shoes are a prime example as they feature uppers made of a unique twill featuring hemp and recycled plastic bottles. A colorful floral print, meanwhile, gives these comfortable shoes a tropical flare.
Pangea Organics Japanese Matcha Tea with Açai and Goji Berry Facial Mask, $40. Available at PangeaOrganics.com
Not only is this vegan, gluten-free, certified organic facial mask a coup for green skin care advocates, it’s a revelation for all beauty lovers, delivering results that can rival those of any brand — eco-minded or not. Pangea Organics’ Japanese Matcha Tea with Açai and Goji Berry Facial Mask was developed to detoxify, hydrate, protect, balance, exfoliate, and brighten the skin, essentially making it successfully adress all your skincare concerns. The organic Matcha tea powder in the formula contains 10 to 15 times the nutrients of most fruits and vegetables — among them polyphenols, antioxidants that promote cellular growth and improve microcirculation, and which protect the skin from UV exposure, enhancing the skin’s immune system. The formula also relies on extracts of two superfoods: goji berries, which are rife with polysaccharides that boast anti-inflammatory and anti-aging benefits, as well as antioxidants that protect dermal fibroblasts, which are responsible for the connective tissue that keeps skin firm and supple, and safeguard the skin against wrinkle-causing free radicals; and açai berries, also rich in antioxidants that help to regenerate the skin. Other ingredients include: green and white clays, which unplug pores, detoxify the skin, and restore it to its premium moisture balance; hydrating and softening jojoba and sunflower seed oils; soothing calendula oil, green tea extract, and cucumber extract to reduce inflammation; and wildcrafted seaweed to boost circulation, promoting cellular regeneration, detoxifying the skin, and fortifying the skin via proteins, minerals, vitamins, and amino acids.
Melissa Joy Manning Oval Drusy Ring, $690. Available at Nordstrom.com
Recycling isn’t a term restricted to newspapers, plastic bottles, and tin cans — in fact, jewelry designers are demonstrating just how chic this process can be by repurposing the materials they use for their creations. Melissa Joy Manning, for instance, has accomplished this feat with this stunning ring, made using recycled 14k gold and a recycled drusy garnet in an emerald green tone. This handcrafted piece of finger candy consists of a band measuring 1/16″ in width and an oval stone with a setting measuring 1/2″ in width and 3/8″ in length.
Tarte Clutch the Spirit Lipgloss Set & Clutch, $32. Available at Ulta.com
When it comes to green makeup lines, Tarte Cosmetics can claim the top spot, offering gorgeous, playful, trendy cosmetics that also soothe and nourish the skin — all formulated with botanical ingredients. This limited-edition gift set incorporates eight deluxe-sized lip glosses formulated with maracuja extract, rich in brightening vitamin C and essential fatty acids that work to moisturize and replenish the skin. The kit comes with a statement-making, hard-cased, rectangular purple clutch with a golden foil motif and a golden bow-shaped top closure — perfect for storing your glosses or for accessorizing your metallic party dresses this season.
The eight lip gloss shades in the set are: Spirit, a pale peachy pink; Dash, a honeysuckle pink; Laugh, a light nectarine hue; Play, a medium pink with warm coral undertones; Vixen, a medium coral shade; Dance, an acerola cherry red; Sing, a medium pink with golden shimmer; and Star, a dark, tomato sauce-esque red.
Check out swatches of all the gloss shades below:
Bare Oaxaca Duffel Bag, $320. Available at BareMade.com
Recently launched by Jessica Biel, eco-friendly handbag line Bare specializes in pieces crafted out of burlap coffee sacks and handmade in Colorado. Designed for weekend getaways, this duffel bag measures 11″ in height, 20″ in width, and 12″ in depth, plus it features an expandable 10″ top space. Customers can pick between a mostly black, mostly brown, or mostly color print but all are fashioned out of burlap coffee sacks originally hailing from the base of the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico.
Jonathan Green Rootine Nourishing Shampoo, $20; Green Rootine Nourishing Conditioner, $22; Green Rootine Dry Shampoo, $19; Green Rootine Pure Paste, $24; Green Rootine Styling Creme, $24. Available at JonathanProduct.com
This hair care line consists of five products formulated with 100% natural ingredients and without moisture-stripping and color-fading sodium laurel sulfates, silicones, parabens, and petrochemicals. The Green Rootine shampoo is formulated with coconut, jojoba, olive, and avocado oils to nourish and soften tresses, along with orange and lemon extracts to gently cleanse your hair and scalp. The Green Rootine conditioner, meanwhile, also incorporates black cumin oil, which can stimulate hair growth and fortify strands at the scalp; spearmint oil to soothe and invigorate the scalp; and avocado oil to soften hair and make it shinier and more manageable. Meant to refresh hair in between washings and extend the life of your blow-outs, the Green Rootine Dry Shampoo, meanwhile, features a portable brush that allows you to apply the product without relying on an aerosol spray. Lastly, both the Silkening Creme and Pure Past allow you to mold and shape hair. Containing shea butter, aloe, black cumin, and clary sage, the Silkening Creme nourishes strands while also making it more manageable (I love massaging it into frayed ends to give them a bit more control). The Pure Paste, meanwhile, is best for more heavy-duty hairdos that require greater control.
SpaRitual Illuminate Holiday 2013 nail lacquers, $12 each. Available at Sparitual.com
All of SpaRitual’s nail lacquers are 100% vegan and formulated without DBP, toulene, camphor or formaldehyde. For Holiday 2013, the brand introduced its Illuminate collection, an assortment of six nail polishes inspired by Murano glass and hence celebrating the time-honored craftsmanship techniques passed down from one generation of artisans to the next. All the nail polishes, then, feature bold colors and iridescent finishes that seem to play with the light — the result of natural pigments being infused with 100% glass beads obtained from recycled wind shields. These glass beads add depth to each nail lacquer shade and lend them an ethereal, halo-like quality.
The six hues are: Improvisation, an iridescent, deep raspberry shade with blue shimmer; Intellect, a deep cobalt blue with shimmer; Intention, a joyous blue-toned red with shimmer; Intuition, a purplish blue hue with tonal shimmer; Invention, a golden tone with yellow gold shimmer; and Imagination, an ethereal, semi-sheer magenta shade with blue shimmer.
Burt’s Bees Bee Keeper Winter Care Kit, $14.99. Available at Target stores.
Winter weather can wreak havoc on the skin, so it’s essential to be diligent about moisturizing if you want to prevent skin from feeling achy, itchy, dry, or flaky. This 3-piece set — featuring a tube of Burt’s Bees Ultra Conditioning Lip Balm, a 2 ounce tin of the brand’s Almond Milk Beeswax Hand Creme, and a 6 oz. tube of the Burt’s Bees Cocoa and Cupuaçu Butters Body Lotion — will keep you covered from head to toe all winter long. The Burt’s Bees Cocoa and Cupuaçu Butters Body Lotion alone is worth the price of this adorably packaged gift set since it softens, replenishes, fortifies, and hydrates the skin via ingredients like cocoa butter, sunflower seed oil, grape seed oil, coconut oil, olive oil, aloe extract, honey, rosemary extract, lactic acid, and soybean oil.
Dante Robles Design Cross-Body Bag, $129. Available at DanteRobles.com
Made by Rachel Santos of Dante Robles Design, this Bohemian-flavored cross-body bag won the top honors within the Best Green Handbag category at this year’s Independent Handbag Awards. What’s so ingenious about this number? Well, the front of the bag is made out of upcycled bicycle inner tubes, manipulated and woven together, while the back is reinforced with medium weight vinyl, and the bottom of the purse features playful fringe. Lined with black cotton, this bag measures 10″ in length and 10″ in height and it features a magnetic closure and a woven four-strand strap.
