Lip Service: 11 Natural Lipstick Brands We Love
- Words by Peppermint
On 14 July 2019, hero to the people Dolly Parton tweeted these immortal words: “Grit and lipstick, two things you should never leave home without!” Oh, Dolly! If only you had known then what we all know now: how much grit we’d all need in the months and years to come (and how little we’d actually be leaving our houses). She was spot on about the lipstick though. Whether you choose to wear it for confidence, for beauty, for comfort, or even to support a worthy cause like Liptember, a splash of colour on your kisser can make your smile a little wider and your feelings a little brighter. Here, we’ve rounded up some of our favourite natural lipstick brands, sealed with a kiss!
Kester Black
Already beloved for their “12-Free” nail polishes, B Corp brand Kester Black also has a collection of cruelty-free, vegan lipsticks. Made in Italy using Certified Organic ingredients in matte colours, the peachy pink ‘First Date’ won Best Lipstick at 2020’s Clean Beauty Awards. Consider that love at first sight!
Eco Minerals
Inspired by the beaches and lifestyle of Byron Bay (the hometown of the brand), Eco Minerals lipsticks are paraben, beeswax and palm-oil free. Choose from five shades – including bright pink ‘Byron Bliss’, orange nude ‘Endless Summer’ and the dramatic and festival-ready ‘Splendour’ – to embrace your inner beach babe.
Lük Beautifood
Lük Beautifood lipsticks are made in Australia using organic essential oils, vitamin E, cacao butter and avocado oil. The 15 shades are designed to offer a “multi-sensory experience” with colours including ‘Guava Blush’, ‘Cranberry Citrus’ and ‘Vanilla Chocolate’. Good enough to eat (but try to resist)!
Axiology Beauty
Launched in 2014 in the US, Axiology Beauty’s vegan, cruelty-free lipsticks contain only 10 ingredients, including organic avocado and coconut oil, and are packaged in boxes hand-made in Bali from recycled rubbish. The collection of 20 pretty shades – with names like ‘Clarity’, ‘Ethos’ and ‘Worth’ – vary between medium and high pigment and can be layered or mixed to get your perfect shade.
Ere Perez
When you really want to party, Australia’s Ere Perez offers 14 vegan ‘Dress It Up’ lipsticks – think bright pinks and glossy reds with names like ‘Fiesta’, ‘Big Band’ and ‘Soiree’ – made with olive oil for moisture. The carbon neutral brand also has a more subtle ‘Daily Shade’ range in their Cacao Lip Colours and Wild Pansy Tinted Lip Bars.
Read more: Makeup Without the Breakup – Here’s Six Brands Leading Refillable Beauty
Dunkle
Dunkle uses raw materials – including organic castor oil and mango seed butter from India, Candelilla wax from Mexico and Damask rose oil from Victoria – across its five bold colours. Each shade is named after important places in the life of founder Molly Dunkle, from the peachy ‘Fort Collins’, her birthplace in Colorado, to the maroon of ‘Brisbane’, her new home.
Inika Organic
Founded in Sydney in 2006, Inika Organic’s award-winning vegan lipsticks and lip crayons contain Certified Organic ingredients like castor seed oil, shea butter and jojoba seed oil. Using carnauba wax to achieve a glossy finish, if it’s good enough for the runways of NYFW, it’s good enough for us!
Mented
A “nude” lipstick means a different colour to each of us, and the founders of Mented believe that everyone should be able to find their perfect shade. Made in the USA, the semi-matte vegan lipsticks range in shades from ‘Peach Please’ to ‘Dark Night’, and are blended with levels of browns and pinks to complement multi-hued lips.
Benecos
Benecos (from the Latin bene, meaning good) was founded with the aim of making “glamorous” makeup with organic ingredients. The vegan, natural matte lipstick – in shades like ‘Bloody Berry’, ‘Trust in Rust’ and ‘Coral Kiss’ – is made with Certified Organic castor seed oil and jojoba for moisture and cornstarch to create a matte finish. Molto bene!
Nude by Nature
Founded in 2008, Sydney brand Nude by Nature covers all your clean lippie needs with their Moisture Shine Lipstick, Creamy Matte Lipstick and Satin Liquid Lipstick. Made with natural ingredients like vitamin E, desert lime and Kakadu plum, the lipsticks are also cruelty free and dermatologist-tested.
Hurraw!
Not a lipstick as such, but a favourite in the Peppermint office, Hurraw!’s tinted lip balms (in ‘Black Cherry’, ‘Raspberry’ and ‘Hazelnut’) are made in the USA with 100% plant-based colours and Certified Organic safflower seed oil, coconut oil and cacao butter for extra moisture. These compact balms are perfect for days when you don’t want to wrangle lipstick on the teeth but are still after a dash of colour.
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TOGETHER WE STITCH RETURNS! 🪡✨
Ditch the dishes. Clear your cutting table. Pop the kettle on. Because Together We Stitch is back from 15 to 22 March for seven joy-filled days of sewing, learning and reveling in the joy of shared community, no matter where you are in the world!
Hosted by Megan from @SewAndTell.Co, this global online sewing event brings thousands of makers together for a week of practical know-how, confidence boosts and those “why didn’t I know this sooner?!” moments.
This year’s line-up is packed with masterclasses and practical inspiration, like:
🪡 Simple knit finishing tricks to make your garments look store-bought by @SewAndTell.Co’s Megan Linley
🪡 Troubleshooting your sewing machine by Jenni Miller from @LetsGetSewingNow
🪡 Hands-on pattern adjustments for sway back from @GinaReneeDesigns
🪡 An interview with Brandon Hayden from @HappilyDressed about building a garment around the fabric you love
🪡 Iron Care 101 by @MicheleMuska
🪡 Kate Boyle from @MindMovementHealth shares posture tips and exercises to help prevent sewing aches and pains
🪡 An easy jeans-to-skirt upcycle project from @LaCreativeMama’s Victoria Martinez Azaro
🪡 DIY custom fabrics and creative craft-room upgrades by Stephanie Young from @So_Stephanie_Says
🪡 Plus choosing prints with intention, making your dream wardrobe a reality, and meeting the creator of Project & Cut, Clinton Blackmore to talk all things PDF pattern future
Together We Stitch is all about expert-led sessions, creative demos, practical tips you can take straight to your sewing table, and a community that celebrates every win along the way. Join live or catch the replays when it suits you.
Head to togetherwestitch.com or hit the link in bio to save your seat. 🪡
#TogetherWeStitch #SewingExpo #SewingInspo #MeMade #SewingCommunity #SewistsOfInstagram
Coffee begins long before your morning cuppa! ☕️
2026 has been declared the International Year of the Woman Farmer, led by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the @UnitedNations. It’s a global spotlight with a practical purpose: to recognise women’s indispensable roles across agrifood systems, and to push for the changes that still haven’t arrived evenly, like equal access to land, finance, training, technology and decision-making.
Into that bigger picture steps Elizabeth Duna, a coffee farmer from Papua New Guinea and the chairwoman of the Keto-Tapasi Progress Association. Elizabeth is also the only female chairperson across the @FairtradeANZ cooperative network in the Pacific, overseeing farmers across the association and helping ensure Fairtrade standards are met.
We had the privilege of chatting to Elizabeth (just in time for International Woman’s Day this Sunday, too!) about what’s been growing and changing within her cooperative, what ‘fair trade’ means to her, and the hopes that manifest in a ‘simple’ bag of coffee beans.
Link in bio ☕️
#FairTrade #FairTradeCoffee #InternationalWomensDay
DIFFICULT ✊🏻✊🏽✊🏿
The collab we needed for International Women`s Day… and every day!
From @DangerousFemales:
"Hands up if you’ve ever been called difficult behind your back, to your face, or by an Australian Prime Minister during a Q&A?
DIFFICULT by Grace Tame, in her own handwriting is… one word: ICONIC!
100% of profits from our tees are donated, 100% of the time. Funds from this @TamePunk tee will go to @BerylWomen_inc, a First Nations led women’s refuge in the ACT.
Kinda ironic, don’t ya think?
Supporting an org in the parliament state with words from a politician for Australia’s longest running and underfunded women’s refuge.
Thank you @TamePunk for being difficult." 🫶🙌
Link in bio to get behind this tee!
#InternationalWomensDay #DangerousFemales #GraceTame #Difficult
NEW PATTERN ALERT 🎉
She’s giving comfort, she’s giving style, she’s giving palate-cleansing sewing. There’s nothing quite like an easy breezy dress that’s not only a dream to wear but a delight to sew, and the NEW Peppermint Myrtle Shift Dress delivers!
Cute, classic and cool with a touch of retro: the Myrtle Shift Dress is a beginner-friendly make with sleek lines and elegant curves. Bust darts are in play for shaping and spacious pockets to hold all your treasures. Top-stitching detail around the neck and armholes invites creative contrast threads and the keyhole loop closure at the back neck begs for a feature button (or a tie closure!).
Myrtle cuts above the knee with options to customise the length. Don’t think she’s reserved for hot weather either: try a heavier-weight fabric to turn your Myrtle into a pinafore-style garment for layering.
For our fabrics we chose two from @Karmme_Apparel – the bold Rottnest Stripes in a lightweight, soft-drape cotton, and the quality linen in the handpainted Mexico Collection. Karmme also stocks darling tassels so we popped a hot pink one on as a closure!
The love child of Imby Langenbach, Karmme Apparel (fittingly pronounced ‘calm’), is a haven of boho apparel sewing patterns alongside complementary fabrics steeped in tradition with modern iterations from Jaipur, India. Hand block-printed and digitally printed soft cottons produced by Indian artisans showcase rich colours and designs from Imby’s travels, perfect for showing off me-made masterpieces.
Our dresses were superbly stitched by our sewing manager @Laura_The_Maker, and modelled magnificently by Shannon @Pins_And_Tonic and Serah @SerahSews. And that perfect pink wall was courtesy of the good folk at @ShareTheDignityAustralia, an organisation that aims to bring dignity to women, girls and those who menstruate who are experiencing homelessness, domestic violence and period poverty.
Get making the Myrtle – the only question is, can you stop at just one?
Link in bio 🪡
Photos: @KelleySheenan
Sewist: @Laura_The_Maker
Patternmaker: @GarmentaApparel
Models: @SerahSews and @Pins_And_Tonic
Fabric: @Karmme_Apparel
#PeppermintMyrtleShiftDress #PeppermintPatterns
Connection 🫶🏻
Such great ideas from @GrowWithColby:
“A common theme I noticed in 2025:
Everyone is craving more connection.
Use these friend nights to make it happen in 2026.
Send this to the people you want to do these with.”
#Connection #Friends #Community
No bull - these pants are the cat`s (or cow`s) pyjamas...
Jenny from @RhubarbSundays:
And they are done! My @PeppermintMagazine #PeppermintFernPleatedPants made using a gorgeous fabric from @IndyBindyFabrics! I absolutely love this fabric! It’s soft and drapes beautifully. And the best thing about it is that, from a distance, it looks like an abstract print and then you look closer and theres a curious bull looking right at you. 🤣🤣 🐄 🐮
Really happy with the end product. They are very comfy! I didn’t make many changes to the pattern. Just a touch more room in the rise and a little bit off the waist. I’ll post some closeups of the details tomorrow when I actually take them off. 🤣 "
Grab the pattern from the link in bio!
#PeppermintPatterns #IMakeMyOwnClothes #ClothesThatFeelLikePyjamas #SewersGonnaSew
