Cosmetic Ingredients, Need an Interpreter?

Our skin is our largest organ. It is not impermeable. Stuff you apply to it is absorbed by it. What's on your skin? Do you really know?

I've been on a mission for years. A quest of sort, to find healthy and functional cosmetic and beauty products. Granted, the FDA requires ingredient disclosure on full sized products either on the product itself, or on the packaging, or included along with mail order cosmetics. Great! So we have a list of words most of us cannot pronounce much less recognize as safe or unsafe, natural or chemical, organic or inorganic, acne causing or non-comedogenic, etc.

Thankfully we live in the age of lightning fast info at our fingertips here at our internet connected PC. Research has become a bit easier, as far as individual ingredients are concerned. There are numerous sites that rate ingredients based on the above mentioned criteria. One I love to keep on hand is "Become An Acne Detective" By Barbara Strickland, Certified Para-Medical Esthetician. If acne is a concern of yours, I'd recommend bookmarking this one! You can even print the handy chart and bring it along with you when you're shopping and disecting the ingredient label.

Paraben preservatives are a huge concern lately. Traces of parabens have been found in cancerous breast tumors. There is no conclusive test results stating that the parabens are responsible for the cancer, yet there are no test results saying the are NOT responsible either. If this is a concern of yours, I'd recommend searching out paraben free health and beauty products. This is quite a difficult quest, as most preservative systems include parabens. BUT preservatives are not necessary in products that contain NO water (like mineral makeup.) Preservaties are also not needed in products made of oils, butters and waxes. Most store brands throw it in anyway, so you'll need to shop the net to find unadultered beauty products.

When shopping for mineral makeup or bath and body items look for the ingredients. Are they hidden? If so, ask yourself why?

Usually they are hiding the ingredients for a reason. They really don't want you to see them! Walking through our local --Mart store the other day I picked up a jar of Revlon and Maybelline "mineral" makeup. First ingredient on the Revlon? Talc. Which although talc is technically a mineral, it's cheap and clogs your pores. And the Maybelline? First ingredient was Titanium Dioxide. GREAT! But the rest.. sorry couldn't pronounce them, much less remember them or how to spell them! But I can assure you most of the ingredients were NOT minerals. Oh and did I mention it was microscopic? Who can read this stuff?

I believe in full product disclosure and prominently display every products individual ingredients for everything I sell. I've even included a page on the site describing every ingredient. When you are creating a quality product there is nothing to hide! Now you may be thinking natural means dull and boring. If you do, you are in for a surprise! Yes, you can have fun with color and still be safe, knowing you are putting something good on your skin.

Our cosmetics are made with premium minerals and pigments. There are various grades, even amongst natural ingredients. You will NOT be able to discern this on any ingredient list. In other words, premium sericite mica and regular untreated mica are both required by the FDA to be listed as "mica" on the ingredient declaration list. Untreated sericite mica often times will result in an ashen look or other color change a few hours after application. Treated sericite mica is much more expensive, but is a more stable product. Ours is treated with Magnesium Myristate, which offers numerous benefits. I won't duplicate our "About Ingredients" page here. You can take a look if you like on our site. So, let me assure you that we could be buying our ingredients at much lower prices and you would never see a difference on the label! BUT you would likely feel the difference, or suffer the loss of added benefits.

Tons of mineral makeup sites state the following: "natural minerals mined from the earth". Well kinda... but not really. Almost all minerals have to be treated and "cleaned" in order to be considered safe for cosmetic use. Trace chemicals of various harmful types are almost always found along with mined minerals. So they are "cleaned" before going on your face. So if you read that oh so popular line about "mined from the earth", think about it hard. Why are they saying that? Have they not done their research, yet they are selling me a product?

We are considering the skin care line, one that uses a natural preservative system, therefore fitting our criteria. But this may have to wait awhile, since the demand is so great for natural mineral makeup. In other words.. we're swamped! In the mean time we will post an article here on occasion about various topics in the cosmetic and beauty field.

http://www.LAminerals.com
http://www.edenskiss.com
http://www.zerozits.com/Articles/acnedetect.htm

By Lorraine Pierce