Part 02: The Many Advantages (and a Few Challenges) in Making Mineral Cosmetics

As consumers, we are becoming more alert to the ingredients that we put into and onto our bodies. Commercial cosmetics frequently contain a high ratio of chemically derived ingredients, and all too often, commercial cosmetics contain harsh preservatives.

Exploring the world of creating your own cosmetics offers a variety of advantages:

• Your handcrafted cosmetics will be of high quality yet cost less than their commercial counterparts.
  
  
• You have control of the ingredients included within the cosmetics that you make.
  
  
• You will know exactly when you created your cosmetics and can closely monitor their shelf life.
  
  
• Handcrafted cosmetics are typically gentler for your skin when properly formulated and used.
  
  
• You are able to customize your own shades to best suit your preferences and skin tone.
  
  
• You won't have to worry about your favorite commercial shade or product being discontinued.
  
  
• If desired, you can further pursue creating naturally based cosmetics for retail sale

The challenges that you will face when making your own cosmetics are as follows:

• Perfecting the exact color of your cosmetics
  
  
• Perfecting the consistency of your cosmetics
  
  
• Addressing the limited shelf life of your cosmetics

Perfecting the color and consistency of your cosmetics is a challenge, but can be one of the most rewarding aspects of formulating your own cosmetics. It is so pleasing to receive a compliment about your lip color or eye shadow colors and be able to remark that you made them yourself.

The most significant challenge in formulating your own cosmetics involves the limited shelf life of handcrafted cosmetics. Unless you add a preservative, your cosmetics will not have the same shelf life as their commercial counterparts. Most of us tend to keep and use our cosmetics until they run out instead of properly disposing of them after a few months. Even heavily preserved commercial cosmetics can become breeding grounds for bacteria because the cosmetics come into contact with our skin. Eye shadow and blusher brushes touch the powders, then gloss over our skin and carry bacteria and oils back to the powdered cosmetic the next time the brush contacts the powders. Mascara brushes touch our lashes and then go directly back into their tubes carrying the oils and bacteria from our lashes directly into the liquid mascara. When you create your own cosmetics, the shelf life is much more limited, but you can keep track of the date that you made them. Because they're less expensive to make, you can replenish your personal cosmetic apothecary with fresh new cosmetics. For more information, see the Shelf Life section of this guide.

Next:
Part 03: Ingredients Commonly Used in Mineral Based Cosmetics