Clean Beauty Monthly: Where To Find The Best Budget-Friendly Natural Skincare & Makeup

Non-Toxic Skincare That Doesn’t Cost The Earth? Columnist Allie Rooke Rounds Up Her Faves

Beauty can be an expensive business, with billions of marketing dollars invested by brands to make us spend more! They are either encouraging us to buy more products, or shell out for higher-priced ones.

Finding good, inexpensive products and working out what to spend money on can be tricky. My rules of thumb: I spend less on anything I wash off, like cleanser or body wash, and as a general guideline, I prefer to use less but go for better quality product.

Below I’ve rounded up my favourite budget-friendly clean beauty products available in Hong Kong. I haven’t compromised on performance or ingredient quality- they are all just great products at an accessible price.

Affordable Natural Make-Up: Lily Lolo

Lily Lolo is a British brand that has been around for over 10 years, which is ancient in the clean beauty space! Their products are made using nourishing and protective ingredients without the unnecessary fillers.

They have a really broad range of makeup, so I’m highlighting a few of my favourite products here:

• Lily Lolo Lip Liner: It comes in 3 shades, I love the Ruby Red! It is soft but doesn’t feather, smooth and creamy, and perfect for those hot red lips we all love.
• Lily Lolo Eyebrow Duo: It comes in 3 shades and includes a powder and a natural wax to hold brows in place. A very popular product!
• Lily Lolo Mineral Loose Powder Foundation: It is extremely well-priced and another one of their more popular products, plus it has SPF 15 and is good for acne prone or oily skin.
• Lily Lolo Pressed Blush: There are 7 colours to choose from so hopefully something for everyone. The one I like best is in the blush – a real pinky pink, but also light enough so it won’t make you look too made up.

Lily Lolo is available locally at Calista.com.hk

Great Skincare Basics: Acure

Skincare is really where the price disparity starts to kick in. Especially with natural products, where brands invest in wonderful, high quality ingredients that are sustainably and ethically sourced (expensive to do), and a far cry from many conventional products that are full of water and fillers with few active ingredients (of course cheaper to produce).

• Acure The Essentials Moroccan Argan Oil:This oil is very multi-purpose, you can use it as a moisturiser for hair, face, hands, nails, body etc. It is a good place to start if you want to give oil a try as a face moisturiser. Don’t be scared: t won’t make you break out – total BEAUTY MYTH.
• Acure Brightening Facial Scrub: We have this in our shower and use it a couple of times a week. It is super grainy so no need to scrub too hard! The granules are made from lemon peel – small and effective.
• Acure Brilliantly Brightening Cleanser: This is rich in antioxidants thanks to heavy hitters like acai, pomegranate and blackberry. It has a fairly strong citrus scent, which I find very refreshing in the summer. This is not recommended for dry skin as it is slightly drying.

Acure products are sold in Hong Kong at Just Green stores.

My Zero Waste Pick: Ethique Bars

For zero waste beauty, Ethique solid bars offer a good natural alternative with minimal packaging and zero plastic and they do everything from Shampoo to Shave bars. Their Face Cleansing Bar is coconut based with Kaolin clay as well as many other skin-nourishing ingredients. It is also extremely long-lasting- you can use it for around 6 months.

Ethique bars are sold online in Hong Kong at Isgo.  

Good For Kids: Weleda Calendula Range

German brand Weleda is a great for babies and kids. I love their Skin Food moisturiser, it’s like a superfood for really dry skin, and I also rate their Calendula range for the little ones, the ingredient of choice when it comes to skin-calming properties.

Weleda can be found in many stores in Hong Kong, though it can be difficult to find the complete range. Baby Basics have some products. 

Parting Words

It’s fair to say that finding budget-friendly clean beauty products can be a real mission, so I hope you find the the above suggestions helpful- at least now you have a good starting point. It bears repeating that all the products featured here fit my (strict) criteria – they are ‘clean’ & ‘natural’ (aka nasties-free) and perform really well, and every single one is below HK$ 200. No mean feat if I do say so myself!