Gwyneth Paltrow's latest venture: creative director of organic cosmetics at Juice Beauty

From sweetheart of the big screen, Gwyneth Paltrow has grown into a force on the retail scene.

Goop, the weekly e-mail newsletter she started in 2008 to share her opinions on fashion, food, travel and health, has evolved into a website where shoppers can buy a Stella McCartney shift dress for $1,960 or Pierre Hardy skate sneakers for a $475.

She also has experimented with pop-up stores in Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago and collaborates with designers on Goop exclusives.

Her most recent venture goes a step further: She has signed on as creative director of makeup for California-based Juice Beauty, which sells clinically validated organic skin care products. Priced from around $15 to $65, Juice is sold at Ulta stores, as well as at www.juicebeauty.com.

Paltrow hadn't heard about Juice until one of Goop's advisory board members introduced her to it.

"I was sent the skin care products and I was in heaven," Paltrow said. "The Stem Cellular Moisturizer [$65] is a product that I use every day. It feels very luxurious and the fact that it's organic, if you see my website, you know that I think that nontoxic products are a very important part of where we're going in the culture and for a sustainable planet."

Paltrow met Juice founder Karen Behnke. Now, they've formed a partnership. But Paltrow is more than the face of an ad campaign. She's presiding over Juice's first major foray into color cosmetics, expanding the line from eight to as many as 80 items. The color cosmetics line is expected to launch before the December holidays. Paltrow is designing the packaging and testing the products.

She's very serious, however, about going organic.

"I'm in a profession where a lot of makeup is put onto my skin," she explained. "The reason that I have never used organic makeup, or infrequently, is I haven't found anything that's high-performance enough to withstand the red carpet or a movie set or a cover shoot."

Creating organic color cosmetics is even more challenging than creating organic skin care products, Behnke said. Formulating mascara that stays put without coal tar or lipstick without lead isn't cheap or easy.

Paltrow applauds Behnke's determination to do so, with the help of two in-house chemists. Paltrow has tested Juice's lipsticks and given them her seal of approval.

"I've never seen color achieved like this in an organic line; it's such concentrated fruit pigments," Paltrow said. "And if I gave you this bright red lipstick to try, you honestly could not tell the difference between it and the most high-end luxury brand."

All of Juice's products are at least 70 percent organic ingredients, meeting California's strictest standards for organic labeling.

Over the past decade, people have become more aware of what they're putting in their body. The food industry has responded with healthier options. (Even Kraft macaroni and cheese is eliminating artificial dyes next year.)

Now, Paltrow and Behnke think people are becoming more aware of what they put on their body. Clinical research shows that skin absorbs about 64 percent of what's put on it, Behnke said.