Mineral Make-Up and Acne - Is It For You?

I am frequently asked about make-up and skin care products, and if they help with breakouts or actually cause more problems. Especially, now that the trend for mineral make-up has been established and the manufacturers of these products are touting them as better for your skin.

So are they...really? Yes and NO.

Like everything you eat or put on your skin, you need to be aware of the ingredients. There are several brands of mineral make-up on the market right now. Mineral make-up is simply natural color minerals mixed with fillers and stabilizers.

It’s applied to dry, specially moisturized skin with a light make-up brush. It is better than liquid or conventional make-ups, both in coverage and blending. The application techniques are simple to learn as well.

All of these changes have been positive as I am sure you would agree. But is it good for your skin as some brands advertise? This depends on the state of your skin, any allergies you may have, and the brand itself.

Many of the things I recommend my readers and skin care clients to stay totally away from such as mineral oils, lanolin, sulfates, and phylates, are NOT in mineral make-up preparations. So in general they would be a better choice.

My main concern is the blocking of pores and some of the brands use fillers that can still do that. In fact, medical doctors and dermatologists have a wide range of opinions on this topic. Some experts say, "It’s all in the marketing".

"I think mineral make-up is just a genius marketing plan -- a new way of selling women the same ingredients that technically have been in make-up for years," says dermatological and pharmaceutical chemist Ben Kaminsky, author of the new book Beyond Botox: 7 Secrets for Sexy, Ageless Skin.

Everyone knows that I always say, “The more natural the better”, however most mineral make-up preparations still use chemical based binders, and color enhancer's.

One mineral make-up product, that is all-natural, is called AfterGlow Cosmetics. We had several of our close friends and clients put their products to the test. Everyone who tried the products liked them and did not experience any problems what so ever with the condition of their skin. I recommend the AfterGlow line of products, if you’re going to use an all-natural mineral make-up preparation.

Kristen Adams, who is president of AfterGlow Cosmetics and who we have communicated with directly, says that mineral make-up products can be dissected in this way...

"Mineral make-up formulas generally fall into two large camps: 1) Those that take care not to use synthetics and stay true to the original intent of pure mineral make-up, 2) Those that do add the fillers, colors, binders, preservatives, and other chemicals to their formulas, in spite of their negative effects".

Bottom line? Check your labels, ask lots of questions, and read reviews before you start using a mineral make-up product.