This Is The Vegan Lipstick That Mayim Bialik Loves
Miss Mayim in glossy, bug-free lipstick Image by Getty Images
So, some pretty rough news — there are probably crushed-up bugs in your lipstick.
Carmine, a key ingredient in many red lipsticks that lends scarlet pigment, is made from cochineal beetles, an insect common to Mexico and the Southern part of the United States. Any lipstick or other makeup product, like blush, that lists carmine, cochineal extract, CI 75470, Crimson Lake, or natural red four in its ingredients contains dye derived from thousands of insects boiled in ammonia or sodium carbonate.
So, that’s not great.
That’s why Shabbos-and-all-the-time queen Mayim Bialik, a noted vegan, loves wearing Tarte Color Splash Hydrating lipstick — the heavily pigmented tubes don’t contain a drop of insect juice.
Bialik’s lifestyle site, Grok Nation, writes that the Tarte Colorsplash line is great because it’s not only vegan but also “formulated without gluten, triclosan, phthalates, sodium laurel sulfate or mineral oil.” The tubes will run you around $24 (steep, but lipstick is lasting and can you really put a price on not ingesting bugs?) and Bialik says they’re her go-to.
“I love the retro tube Tarte puts their lipsticks in,” she says. “And these colors are super rich, and no one can tell they’re not made from ground up bugs!”
Well, alright-y then. You don’t have to be vegan, or keep kosher, to get on board with that.
Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO