Lipstick on the Rim: You Had Us at Glowy Super Gel – Saie’s Laney Crowell on Good Skin, Good Decisions, and Leading a Non-Toxic Life

By Mollysims.com

Clean beauty is a term thrown around far too often, but today’s guest takes great pride in her strict approach. Meet Laney Crowell: the founder and CEO of Saie, a brand you’ve heard about countless times here on Lipstick on the Rim (we’re obsessed). Their specialty? Marrying high-performance formulas with sustainable packaging and practices. Their good-for-you ingredients are what had us hooked initially, but the off-the-charts glow converted us forever. There are people who talk the talk; Laney walks the walk. In fact, she runs and has always been ahead of the eight ball. From a mighty helpful lesson on composting to the non-alcoholic drink she swears by, consider Laney your new North Star for clean beauty and beyond.

[Laney] On Beauty That Does Good

“What if every aspect of beauty made you feel good? This is an industry for people but primarily women and as a woman I want to feel good when I’m spending my money. I think beauty should make you feel good, inherently. There used to be a whisper about clean beauty. My ‘aha’ moment was when I was going out when night, looking for some makeup. I had a beauty closet in our apartment with bins and labels on it. The bin for makeup was empty and all the other bins were overflowing. It was this very visual moment of where the white space was and where there was something missing for the consumer.”

[Laney] On What ‘Clean’ Means

“The way I like to describe it is that your products should be good for you. Every ingredient that’s in there is doing something that’s good for your skin as opposed to doing nothing. Silicones are such a great example—they don’t even get absorbed into your skin. They’re a plastic so you could argue that they’re clean but let’s talk about them as an ingredient that does nothing for you. If you’re prone to breakouts, they’ll make you breakout because they don’t go anywhere. Instead of silicone, you could have an ingredient that’s nourishing, plumping, and repairing your skin. The third thing to think about with ingredients is what they do to the planet. Silicones never go away. They’re forever and when you have a foundation that’s full of silicones, like most are, you wash your face, and they go down the drain, and they never go away. We’re swimming in silicones.”

[Laney] On Living a Non-Toxic Life

“Getting rid of single use plastic is the easiest thing to do. Bring your water bottle everywhere. I remember someone once asked me what I do when I’m thirsty, and I just stay thirsty until I get home, it’s okay. Saying ‘no’ is really powerful when it comes to the environment. Saying ‘no’ to single-use plastic is something that actually takes a little bit of effort but it’s not that hard. Another one that people get really intimidated by but it’s something that has such a big impact on the environment is composting. We just got the Lomi, the composter that sits on your countertop. We also have a compost outside. You can look up where your compost is and drop it off at your farmer’s market. All of our produce, fruits, vegetables, and depending on the composter, some cheese, meats, any starch which includes crackers and papers, you actually want to put dry paper into your mix. Composing is basically a natural matter decomposing in a natural way. When you put natural waste in the landfill it takes months and months to decompose, because it doesn’t have the natural stuff around it to become soil. If you do it at home you can create this beautiful soil which is the best soil you can ever have to put around your trees and flowers. It takes effort but it’s a nice way to connect with what you’re eating and your garden and outdoor area. It’s so much better for the environment. As much as we can keep out of the landfills the better.

Laney’s Beauty Must-Haves: