Millie Bobby Brown, the fifteen year-old star of Netflix’s Stranger Things, recently launched her own clean beauty brand, Florence by Mills. Including both makeup and skincare, the company aims to create affordable, clean products for teenagers to use as they begin their journey into the beauty world. All of their products are paraben, sulfate, phthalate, dye, and synthetic fragrance free. They are also cruelty free and vegan.
Although Florence by Mills is geared more towards young teens, the gentle and natural ingredients are what attracted me. I have extremely sensitive skin that turns red and itchy if I use anything that may cause irritation. Because of this, I tend to stick to simple beauty products; the brand’s clean status seemed like a perfect fit for me.
I decided to order three products from the Florence by Mills website: the Like a Light skin tint, the See You Never concealer, and the Look Alive eye balm. I’ve been looking for a lighter foundation/concealer duo that still lets my skin breath for a while now and I’ve never used an eye balm before so I was really excited to try these out. My college student budget was happy about the prices as well.
After using these products for a couple of weeks I have come to the conclusion that, for me personally, there are pros and cons to each of these products.
The skin tint provided the lighter coverage I was looking for, but I had issues with the formula. My skin is also prone to dryness and the product seemed patchy even with moisturizer underneath it. On a positive note, the skin tint did not break out or irritate my skin whatsoever. It also comes in twenty shades, so finding a good color match is relatively easy.
The concealer was probably my least favorite out of the three things I tried. Although I wanted something that wasn’t too thick, this product barely had any coverage and the little it did have wore off quickly. I felt like I hadn’t even put on concealer. Like the skin tint, it also had a shade range of twenty. I found myself wanting to reach for my Tarte Shape Tape when trying this out though.
The final and more spontaneous product I tried was the eye balm. Let me just say that the metal tip applicator (which the concealer also has) felt amazing when I rubbed it underneath my eye. It was so relaxing and such a nice way to start my morning. That was where the magic of this product ended for me. It wasn’t bad, just okay. I don’t know that much about eye balms. That being said, I didn’t notice a difference in my dark circles or any puffiness I may have had while using this particular eye balm like it said I would. Still, when it comes to the important step of moisturizing your under eye area, this does get the job done.
Despite my own experience with these products not fulfilling what I wanted, I think they would work really well for some people. Understandably, they seem perfect for their target audience- young teenagers who haven’t messed with their skin a lot yet and don’t need heavy coverage. Clean beauty lovers of any age who already have good skin and just want to have fun with makeup would probably appreciate these products too.
The brand has a ton of other makeup and skincare products that I’d still be willing to try even after not having success with what I got this first time around (the blush and lip gloss seem especially cute). Overall I think Florence by Mills’ goal of providing clean products to younger people for an affordable price is awesome, and definitely worth a try.