Mented Helped Me Find My Nude Makeup Groove

For years, my lipstick loving life was all about color. The bolder and brighter, the better. Hello, when given the opportunity to come up with my own color I devised All Of My Purple Life. I LOVE a vibrant lip color. But I also realized that I leaned heavily on color to give me courage.

Red to help me feel like a rockstar. Purple to amplify regality. Fuchsia for ferocity. You get the picture. I hardly ever reached for a true nude look. I thought nude makeup was elegant, beautiful, and mature. A smoky eye and a nude lip is SUCH a staple editorial look, stylish and timeless. But I also thought that I couldn’t pull it off. It just didn’t feel like “me.” I felt like a nude lip made me look washed out instead of enhancing my beauty. Also, I had a hard time finding the RIGHT nude for my skin tone. That’s until Mented came into my life.

Mented Cosmetics makes products that are vegan, paraben free and cruelty free. The brand has been dedicated to creating the perfect range of nude shades for Black beauty — as I always like to say, all shades of beautiful. The creators, Amanda Johnson and KJ Miller, intentionally created a brand that would fill a void in the cosmetics industry. They couldn’t find the perfect nude for them, so they decided to make what they couldn’t find. We’re all better off for their efforts.

Mented started out with lipsticks and glosses in ideal nude shades for deeper skin tones. Now they’ve added red lipsticks, as well as a killer eyeshadow palette, nail polish, stick foundation, and blush. I can’t wait to see what’s next for them!

So far I’ve been lucky enough to try their lipsticks, lip gloss and the eye shadow palette has become a staple for me. Mented got me to wear nudes! Check out these shades and let me know what you think.

Here I’m wearing Mented #5, their signature shade – “a fully pigmented, multi-dimensional blend of brown, purple, and pink.”

This is called Dope Taupe, and it’s so close to my natural lip color it astounds me.

And this shade is called Nude LaLa, a semi-matte brown and pink blend that brings out a peachy/pink shade on me.

All creamy to apply, moisturizing and long lasting. Currently my go-to is Mented # 5 because I’m so used to a deeper contrast in my lipsticks, and it’s a perfect fall shade as well. I do also love blending Dope Taupe and Nude LaLa for a pretty pinky brown shade.

Have you tried Mented yet? You should definitely check them out! Visit their website MentedCosmetics.com, or follow them on social media on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @MentedCosmetics.

Thank you for sending these samples and for your patience, Mented Cosmetics!