When I first look at this little vial of, basically, purple glitter, I was a bit taken aback. Half the fun of buying makeup (if my memory serves me correctly) was getting it in a fun little cake, plus a cool compact contained thing that fit in your hand, and an applicator that looked like a teeny weeny paintbrush, enough to bring out one’s inner Picasso.
Of course, go into your local drugstore and take a peek at the 1000000000 ingredients that you can’t pronounce plus that many of the colors that are used are made from coal tar…and even thr stuff that doesn’t have coal tar has all those chemical colors, D&C Red 33, FD&C Yellow, which have already been shown to cause cancer when applied to the skin. Ugh!
One has to be extra careful around the eyes, as it’s a mucous membrane and absorbs all sorts of things…plus, we don’t want to mess with our eyesight in the name of beauty.
Earth’s Beauty founder Marj Melchiors told me she sticks to the “less is more” philosophy when formulating her makeup, and indeed, I felt a little bit like I was painting the caves of Lascaux with the pointy cotton swab.
I imagined bits of purple flaking into my eyes as I taught my class, but it lasted beautifully through a two and a half hour class and through a long dinner. Plus, it washed right off, so I guess it wasn’t secretly made of indelible marker stuff. I asked Marj what was the deal, and she said indeed, it’s so simple. The eyeshadow is just a natural mineral pigment plus organic arrowroot powder, which is attracted to the oils in the skin, and that’s what makes it stick there, instead of whatever chemical epoxy normal cosmetics use.
It’s a little weird getting used to the loose powder (oops! I dread spilling it), but when occasions call for makeup while I’m trying to keep myself as nontoxic as possible, I will definitely reach for this eye shadow. It comes in a zillion and one colors, and samples are available at www.allnaturalcosmetics.com.
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