we all want to look good naturally. In a perfect world, we could face anyone barefaced and

confident, but most of us need a helping hand from makeup.

Makeup is one area where many people compromise, opting for ease of application, staying power,
and color selection instead of natural ingredients. When was the last time you checked the ingredients
of that “vinyl shine” lip-gloss? Something tells me never. After all, we apply paint to such small
areas of the skin compared with our bodies that we believe a little makeup isn’t really going to hurt—
or is it?

While the jury is still out, troubling research is published every day: lead is found in lipsticks,
aluminum lurks in eye shadows, coal tar dyes give color to mascara. While things have certainly
improved since the time of Queen Elizabeth I, when her distinguishing white makeup gave her lead
poisoning, women are still willing to use toxic makeup for the sake of beauty.

Color Me Healthy

Consider the ingredients list of an average bottle of liquid foundation. Water is at the beginning,
followed by silicones, talc, glycerin, paraffin, synthetic wax, aluminum starch, propylene glycol,
more mineral oil, more silicones, sodium laureth sulfate, synthetic fragrance, and some FDA-
approved pigments. In some foundations, paraffin and mineral oil are listed several times!All of these
ingredients have been shown to block skin pores and cause irritation in human or animal studies.
Let’s not forget about the potent blend of preservatives contained in any foundation, fluid or powder.
These usually include formaldehyde-releasing butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and disodium EDTA,
triethanolamine, and the strong contact allergen iodopropynyl butylcarbamate. The only natural
ingredients occurring in conventional foundations are usually limited to panthenol, menthol, camphor,
beeswax, and beta-carotene. Remove all the irritants, potential and proven toxins, and fragrance, and
what are we left with? A pinch of mineral pigments.

No wonder mineral makeup, which is nothing more than finely powdered minerals, is becoming the
makeup of choice of health-conscious models, celebrities, and makeup artists. Thanks to the latest
technologies, minerals can be milled so finely that they stick to the skin’s surface without any need for
additional binding and slip agents such as silicones, and since mineral powder contains no water,
there’s no need to use preservatives either.

The bulk of a mineral makeup powder is composed of titanium oxide, a naturally occurring white
mineral that can be found in its purest form in white beach sand. Titanium oxide can make up one-
quarter of a jar of mineral foundation, serving as a base color and a physical sunscreen. Another key
ingredient is zinc oxide, occurring in nature as the opaque white mineral zincite. Zinc serves an
important role in skin health, protecting it from inflammation caused by bacteria and oxidative
damage. It can even speed up wound healing! Other mineral makeup ingredients include iron oxides
and mica.

There has been a lot of debate regarding the safety of bismuth oxychloride, which is found in many
popular mineral makeup products. There have been claims that bismuth oxychloride can cause cancer,
but authors of such articles and blog posts often confuse bismuth salts (not scary) with pure bismuth
(can be quite toxic). It’s the same with titanium and titanium oxide. No one is using pure metal
titanium in mineral makeup, and no one is using pure bismuth! According to recent studies published