Mac Cosmetics (Yay!) & Aveda Products (Boo!)

[Amtza]

Just wanted to put this out there:

Recently realized my skin's itchy from some haircare products-- I felt very silly and sort of stupid when I read the ingredients in my Aveda haircare line: they all contained wheat. Even the Brilliant Damage Control hairspray. And the volumizer. And damage remedy. And color conditioner. Grr.

So going shopping at Whole Foods.

Secondly, I've been calling makeup manufacturers b/c I had to ditch some makeup that wasn't safe (including Aveda), and the people at MAC are *amazing*. The customer service rep was on the phone with me for 20 minutes, looking up ingredients and checking their "test" list -- they label wheat, rye, barley, she said. She let me know which products only contained corn and soy (I'm lucky in that I don't have issues with those). Thus I found out that almost all their mascaras are safe -- but not Opulash. And that the Powder Blush is fine, but not the Mineralized Blush.

Just thought I'd contribute, maybe save someone else the time it took me to verify everything.

They're going to e-mail me the full ingredients list of the eye makeup removers -- they will email the ingredients list for any specified product for you, and/or check the list, if you just ask. I got the same woman each time I called--Adrienne, maybe?--and she was awesome. Her sister has celiac. So she does understand.

[Rowena]

So good to hear...

Heads up, I've had great success with the fragrance free 365 shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, and hand soap at WF. Just thought that you would like to know that. Also Tom's of Maine products are excellent.

[Amtza]

Thanks. I did a products purge yesterday. Going to give my mother all the Aveda products I have. At WF, bought Shikai shampoo & conditioner (read that recommendation in the forums here), and Desert Essence face "lotion" & eye cream. No itching so far.

Also bought MAC Mascara X and MAC Blush Powder.

W/r/t perfumes, I've used Coco Chanel Mademoiselle for years and never had any problems.

Now I just need to find a decent lip balm and hand lotion.

[Rowena]

Oh another thing you can do in the future, (I did this and it has worked wonderfully) since you said you are near a WF, is go to their website, Open Original Shared Link and enter your zip code at the top of the screen and locate your store. I have to look again, but every store has a list (I believe it's under a link labeled Special Diets) of gluten free items. They have different dietary lists, so if you have other allergies/intolerances, you can look those up too. You'd probably have to cross check and see which ones are matching on the different lists you print off. I recommend taking this list, (which list only the products the store has, so you don't have to worry about not being able to find what you want that's on the list) the first couple times you shop.

Oh for hand lotion, I use the body lotion fragrance free of course, of the Whole foods brand. They also have a Kiss My Face brand, but I ain't tried it yet.