After making the commitment to use only vegan and cruelty-free beauty products, I purged the majority of my stash.  It hurt.  We get attached to our make-up and beauty security blankets that we know we can rely on…I mean, I need to have eyebrows to go out in public so I don’t look like I’m homeless…what am I going to do now?  There was initial panic, but with my mind focused on the reason why, I packed up a box and just let go…

The second step was research, research, research and the third, and most fun, was to replace!   Some items had to be replaced immediately…as in, like, that day…such as mascara and the aforementioned eyebrows.  Sigh, thus is the life of a ginger.  Replacing other items weren’t as pressing.  For the past five years or so, I haven’t used much perfume, primarily because I took the metro every day to and from work and had regard for other people’s noses.  There is seriously nothing worse than sitting by someone who stinks, good or bad, for an hour (FYI, great way to get a migraine).  Then I had a couple kids.  Babies have very sensitive senses of smell and I didn’t want to overwhelm them.  And frankly, I had two small kids and barely put on real people clothes if I didn’t  have to, let alone put on perfume…who am I trying to impress?  Well, I no longer have to take the metro to work, the kids grew up a bit, and date nights have increased in frequency (thanks, Grandma!), so I started getting around to finally replacing my stock of perfume.

I’ll tell you, saying goodbye to my go-to perfume was hard.  I was absolutely in love with it, but alas…you lose my support if you test on poor little helpless animals.  Trying to find vegan, cruelty-free perfume is hard!  Many stores don’t stock the brands and, oh yeah, how do you know if you’ll like a scent if you can’t smell it before you buy it?!  Vegan perfume shopping is a game of take my money and hope.  You buy something online and hope you like it.  I came across Harvey Prince Organics on Instagram.  I was perusing the daily feed and on one of the pages I followed, I saw a promotion for a free Harvey Prince mini-roller of perfume if you pay shipping.  I Googled the company, which states it is vegan and cruelty-free, uses organic ingredients, and does not contain harmful ingredients such as phthalates, paragons, sulfates, benzenes, GMOs, or triclosan.  Impressive.  I then took to PETA.org which verified the company to be cruelty-free.  I even emailed them and received a response assuring me that the products were indeed both vegan and cruelty-free…obsessed much?  Yeah, maybe a bit overboard.   Anyways, I thought the promotion was the perfect way to test out some new scents without spending an arm and a leg.

On their website, they have a ‘bestsellers’ tab, so I ordered a mini-roller of each of their most popular scents; Hello, Eau So Divine, Sincerely, and Temptress.  I also ordered a few others; Yogini, Bailando, Ageless, Signature, and Parisienne. Mini-rollers are perfect for trying out something new before committing to a larger bottle.  They are 7 or 8 ml, but last for a long time.  I’m not going to go into detail about what each one smells like, they do a pretty good job of that on their website.  I will tell you that my favorites are Hello, Ageless, and Sincerely.  I did not care for the Bailando, Signature, or Parisienne much, but to each their own.

Below you can see how big the mini-rollers are…about the size of your middle finger.  With each order, they also send you a sample so you can try out something new.   It was a nice little surprise.  You can choose from different sizes, the smallest being a mini-roller which varies from 7 to 8 ml-ish for $23 and the largest being a 50 ml bottle for $57.  And be on the lookout for promotions!  I saved a lot of money initially, and now I know which scents to invest in the large bottles!

Overall, I have to say that I love Harvey Prince!  As far as shopping for perfume without having it in front of you goes, they make it very easy by having a section outlining their bestsellers and having affordable and different size bottles.  The Ginger Veganista approves!  The Harvey Prince Organics also makes men’s cologne, as well as bath, hair, and body products. Have you tried any Harvey Prince Organics products?  What did you think?  Leave a comment below!