Mallysa Dueñas

Can you tell us about your­self?

I have been Ve­g­an for al­most 3 years and I have been a make­up artist for as long as I can re­mem­ber. It is some­thing that I have al­ways loved and my love for it has nev­er changed, it has on­ly grown. I guess I am a fair­ly cre­a­tive per­son, I en­joy pro­jects that are hands on and the make­up in­dus­try al­lows me to do that ev­ery­day. Apart from make­up I love sports, es­pe­cial­ly soc­cer. I en­joy be­ing out­doors, danc­ing, draw­ing, eat­ing and throw­ing my­self in­to new and exc­it­ing pro­jects.

Why did you go ve­g­an?

I ac­tu­al­ly had been in­ter­est­ed in veg­e­tarian­ism for a long time. I had tried a mil­lion and one fad di­ets in­clud­ing the Atkins di­et which is crazy now that I think about it. I be­gan do­ing re­search and came across Meet your Meat, 12 min­utes and 30 se­conds that changed my life for­ev­er. I be­came Ve­g­an in­s­tant­ly, and have nev­er looked back.

Be­com­ing Ve­g­an changed my life, I be­came aware of so many things and it wasn’t just about the food I put in­to my mouth. Life wasn’t about brand names, how I looked or what was go­ing on with the lat­est celebri­ty any­more. Life was about the cli­mate cri­sis, spe­cie­sism and ev­ery­thing else that is wrong with the world. Ev­ery­thing else just lost its im­por­tance. Ve­g­an­ism turned me in­to a bet­ter per­son and that is my favou­rite part about be­ing ve­g­an. You don’t sweat the small stuff.

Did you en­coun­ter any dif­fi­cul­ties? If so what were they and how have you dealt with them?

My main dif­fi­cul­ty has been the make­up in­dus­try, I have thou­sands up­on thou­sands of dol­lars in­vest­ed in my make­up kit and most of it was purchased be­fore I be­came Ve­g­an. I be­lieve that if it has al­ready been purchased I should use it as long as I am not cont­inu­ing to put my mon­ey to­wards the in­dus­try.

While it is dif­fi­cult to find Ve­g­an make­up, it is not im­pos­si­ble. As with ev­ery­thing, re­search is the key and if you love a cer­tain brand all you need to do is con­tact head of­fice and they should be able to pro­vide you with a list of prod­ucts that are ve­g­an. I al­ways look out for in­gre­di­ents such as beeswax, lano­lin, lard, lac­tose or whey. Some prod­ucts al­so have glyc­erine which can be an­i­mal or plant de­rived, you can eas­i­ly find out be calling the com­pany.

I guess it is dif­fi­cult for me be­cause I need so many prod­ucts, but for the ev­ery day per­son you just need to find out your key prod­ucts and stick to them if they work for you.

Could you talk a lit­tle more about why some make­up prod­ucts aren’t suit­able for ve­g­ans?

A lot of cos­met­ics con­tain an­i­mal prod­ucts or have been test­ed on an­i­mals. It is im­por­tant not to purchase th­ese prod­ucts be­cause it means we are sup­port­ing th­ese in­dus­tries. As con­sumers we speak with our wal­lets and cer­tain in­dus­tries wouldn’t ex­ist if we didn’t purchase their prod­ucts.

It is re­al­ly im­por­tant to sup­port com­pa­nies that have de­cid­ed to cre­ate cru­el­ty free prod­ucts. It is very easy to think what can I do? What I am do­ing is not go­ing to make a dif­fer­ence. That is where we are very wrong. We have so many tools to help us re­search and find the per­fect prod­ucts to com­pli­ment our skin.

How dif­fi­cult is it to find make­up prod­ucts that aren’t test­ed on an­i­mals or con­tain an­i­mal in­gre­di­ents

As I said ear­li­er, it has been some­thing that I have strug­gled with but it is not im­pos­si­ble. It takes a lit­tle bit of time and re­search. I al­ways tell peo­ple what works for one per­son might not work for some­one else. Make­up is quite per­so­n­al and there are many things you need to con­sid­er when buy­ing skin care or foun­da­tions. For ex­am­ple your skin type, tone and the look you are try­ing to achieve. I love what I do and I am al­ways want­ing to hear about new prod­ucts or give ad­vice so feel free to con­tact me if you have a spe­cif­ic ques­tion.

What are some prod­ucts you par­tic­u­lar­ly re­c­om­mend for any­one in­ter­est­ed in cru­el­ty free beau­ty?

I love Pau­la’s choice, for those who don’t know she is the au­thor of Don’t go to the cos­met­ics coun­ter with­out me. She rates ev­ery brand un­der the sun and over time has start­ed her own cos­met­ics and skin care line. On her web­site www.pau­las­choice.com.au she lists the prod­ucts that aren’t Ve­g­an and what they con­tain. I have tried the foun­da­tions and they are good. You can or­der sam­ples to make sure you are purchas­ing the cor­rect colour or you can drive to the ware­house to check them out.

I am al­so lov­ing OCC (Ob­ses­sive Com­pul­sive Cos­met­ics) at the mo­ment. They have an amaz­ing lip­tar that stays on and doesn’t budge, It has the strength of a lip stick and a nice gloss. It is tru­ly one of the more amaz­ing prod­ucts I have ev­er come across. They al­so have an amaz­ing primer that I am ob­sessed with; I have tried many primers and this is the on­ly one that I have found to work. They al­so have some loose dusts that are nice. You can find some prod­ucts on www.make­u­pand­glow.com.au which is good be­cause they are in Aus­tralia but they don’t have the full range. You can al­so go straight to the source on www.oc­c­make­up.com for the full range. You can find this in the FAQ sec­tion of the web­site:

What’s with the ‘Ve­g­an’ thing?
In a time when many cos­met­ic com­pa­nies make the claim that their prod­ucts are “Cru­el­ty Free” sim­p­ly be­cause An­i­mal Test­ing has be­come less cost-ef­fec­tive, OCC felt it was ne­ces­sary to raise the bar on this is­sue. We pledge not to use An­i­mal-De­rived In­gre­di­ents (in­clud­ing Lano­lin, Beeswax, Car­mine, etc.) in our prod­ucts, ev­er. We sim­p­ly be­lieve that it’s un­ne­ces­sary, since there are al­ter­na­tives that are just as read­i­ly avai­l­able, and equal­ly ef­fec­tive in the for­mu­la­tion of our prod­ucts.

Other brands you can try are Ini­ka which can be found in most health stores. Na­tio and MAC al­so have a lot of ve­g­an prod­ucts. Choose Cru­el­ty Free al­so have a list of ve­g­an make­up.

How have your fam­i­ly and friends re­act­ed to your ve­g­an­ism? Have you in­flu­enced any­one else to go ve­g­an?

Since I be­came Ve­g­an, my par­ents, sis­ter and best friend have turned veg­e­tarian and i have in­flu­enced a lot of peo­ple that are close to me.

How do you feel switch­ing to ve­g­an­ism has im­pact­ed your health?

My ini­tial rea­son for be­com­ing veg­e­tarian was to lose weight, which seems sil­ly to me now be­cause there are so many more im­por­tant things go­ing on in the world. But in say­ing that, be­com­ing Ve­g­an has helped me main­tain a healthy weight and it has done won­ders for my health. I am rare­ly sick, I feel a lot more en­er­get­ic and I can hon­est­ly say that I am hap­pi­er, which is so im­por­tant. I re­al­ly be­lieve that food has a lot to do with the way we feel in­side and out.

What are some of your favou­rite meals?

My favou­rite thing to do is go to ei­ther Vegie Bar, Soul food cafe or Las Ve­g­an cafe on Smith street. On my days off I take a sketch book, some pen­cils and draw while I eat, then af­ter­wards I’ll go for a shop. When I am at home I love cook­ing with fresh ve­gies, to­fu, whole­grain carbs and yum­my sauces.

Have you en­coun­tered any ab­surd stereo­types, com­ments or neg­a­tive at­ti­tudes?

I am very lucky when it has come to this, I rare­ly en­coun­ter neg­a­tiv­i­ty. Most peo­ple I meet are in­trigued and want to know ev­ery­thing I know. The most ab­surd stereo­type is that I on­ly eat ve­gies, to­fu nuts and ber­ries. If I cook for th­ese peo­ple or take them to a Ve­g­an res­tau­rant I can in­s­tant­ly change their minds.

Is there any­one who has par­tic­u­lar­ly in­spired or helped you?

I gather in­spi­ra­tion from ev­ery­where and any­where. In my tran­si­tion pe­ri­od I had to learn ev­ery­thing on my own be­cause I didn’t know any other ve­g­ans, but I have helped a lot of peo­ple and ac­com­panied them food shop­ping to point them in the right di­rec­tion.

What do you think are the most ef­fec­tive ways of help­ing ve­g­an­ism to be­come more main­stream

I find that peo­ple are in­trigued by the un­known. Most peo­ple think that we are all crazy hip­pies that’s why this cam­paign is so im­por­tant and such a good idea be­cause a lot of ve­g­ans are nor­mal peo­ple, with nor­mal ca­reers.

As ve­g­ans we are the voice for an­i­mals, they can­not speak to de­fend their lives or their bodies, we are the ones who need to help peo­ple un­der­s­tand that there is no dif­fer­ence be­tween a cow and a pet dog; they are just as im­por­tant and they feel just as much pain.

Pass­ing on our knowl­edge and al­ways be­ing well in­formed with sub­jects that are close to our hearts. Pas­sion speaks vol­umes.