When my love of making things from scratch collides with David Suzuki telling us our makeup is full of crazy chemicals, of course my reaction is to make my own makeup. The Davis Suzuki Foundation has made a handy little downloadable shoppers guide and a mobile version of the dirty dozen, both found here. As a side note, it may interest you to know that a handful of popular lines are actually free of a lot (but certaintly not all) of the chemicals on the list like Bite, Bliss, The Body Shop, Buxom, Cake, Carol's Daughter, Clean, Fairydrops, First Aid Beauty, Hourglass, Korres, Ms & Mrs, Philosophy, Super, Supergoop, Tarte, and Temptu. I'm sure there are more but these are the ones I have read that are made without most of the dirty dozen. I will also admit that I'm not going to stop using Urban Decay or Too Faced, and they don't say anything at all about not being made with the bad stuff. Also, there are super cute companies like Tokidoki that avoid parabens but not necessarily the other stuff.
Having said all that, I mentioned my makeup concerns to my sister and she suggested I try making my own. What a neat idea! It never occured to me to even try. A lot of the shops online that sell supplies sell them in bulk (for people who are making their own lines of makeup, I'd imagine), and it took a little digging around to find a shop that carried what I was looking for in the amounts I was hoping for. I finally settled on Voyageur Soap and Candle Co, based out of British Columbia. That was handy for me too because I didn't have to pay duty! I bought enough for a slew of shadows, a face powder and lipglosses (I'll post the lipgloss tute separately). This is what I got for shadows and loose powder:
This picture is the whole order, including all the lipgloss gear.
The first thing I made was a basic face powder. So simple it hurts.
Just measure out the ingredients and shake it up in a zippy before you tip it into a little jar with a recessed sifter.
1 1/2 tsp Sericite Mica
1/2 tsp Micronasphere M
1/8 tsp Silk Powder
10-20 .15 cc spoons of mica colour (more for a darker colour)
This is the Hot Pink Mica. It's so so so bright, I'm in love.
The basic recipe for the eyeshadows is just this:
1/2 tsp Sericite Mica
1/8 tsp Micronasphere M
4-15 .cc spoons Silk Powder
10-20 .15 cc spoons of mica colour (more for a darker colour)
I used about 15 .15 cc spoons of Hot Pink Mica the first time, and while it is pretty, it's not bright enough for me.
I added another 5 .15 cc spoons or so here and it's just right.
I kept that ratio going for the rest of my shadows. This one is 20 .15 cc spoons of Superstar Blue Mica.
This one is made with Vintage Grey Mica and I use it all the time. It's one of my favourites.
This last one is Merlot Sparkle!
One of the fun things about mineral makeup in general, is you can use just a little for a sparkly but still pretty casual look or you can ass just a bit more and really pop. The same is true for making your own! With mine, I added more mica than the average bear to make my base colours super bright because that's my daily. I can apply more than a little when I want to go all out and feel like a rockstar - or I can sweep a tiny bit of the base mica over it to calm it down a little. There are almost endless colour combos to try out too, so even after I've made all the colours I think I want to try, I can play with mixing the micas to make more unique colours. Fun!! On top of all of that - mineral makeup (specifically the silk powder) has 18 kinds of amino acids and trace elements that are actually essential to the human body! In Canada, I'd suggest going with Voyageur Soap and Candle Co, and in America, I have heard and read good things about The Ponte Vedra Soap Shoppe.
