Aveda is excellent. A little pricer, but good.

I forgot...Pureology is a fantastic hair care line (again expensive, but worth it).

REN Skincare is awesome. Not cheap, but it lasts for ages. I have used it for nearly 3 years now. Their ingredient ethos is superb.

http://www.renskincare.com/

The nice thing is you can save money on other things....Urtekram, if you can find them, is a Danish company that makes terrific natural shampoos and they are inexpensive. I use them, as well as their deodorant (which WORKS...!)..the shampoos have no SLS, no sulfates, etc.

http://www.urtekram.dk/english/

For soap to use around the house and the body, Dr. Bronner's is THE original. The labels are wacky, but the ingredients are unbeatably pure. Cheap too!

www.drbronner.com

A lot of the makeup I use is Everyday Minerals (also cheap, and made without bismuth oxychloride, which makes some people itch.)

www.everydayminerals.com

I tend to spend more on skincare, and on makeup use a mix of the Everyday Minerals and "regular" lines like Nars, YSL, etc...but on skincare, I don't mess around. I hold them to a pretty high standard in terms of claims and ingredient quality!

Hope this helps

-rabid

Meh - flagged, but mine should show up soon.

Sorry no advice, but I like natural products, I usually use burt's bees lipstuff. Rabidmoon you are a goddess! Thanks for the cool links, I've heard of Ren products but could never get my hands on them locally. I think it's a great idea to make your own beauty products. I'd like to make some lipgloss or eyeshadow.

A good place to start when you want to make your own cosmetics is to get into some books-there are some really good ones out there to help you get started.

My fave resource for raw materials in the UK/European area is Aromantic (www.aromantic.com) - I am not sure what the USA equivalent to this would be, but there is bound to be somewhere you can buy similar things in the states.

Another thing which I did is I found a local beekeeper when I lived in Scotland, and bought his excess beeswax for my products (when I made them), and used it for myself too, in almost everything.

My peak moment was recreating my own version of Eve Lom's cleanser, which I used for ages. I actually just ran out before I moved to Finland - but now I need to find some new bees!

I second the fact that Pureology is an INCREDIBLE hair care line, I love it.

Kiss My Face has some great products, as does Burt's Bees like you mentioned. Lush has some great stuff too. And other people are right Dr Bronner's is fabulous and has so many uses.