Be sure to see mine……

i work with natural (mostly plant-based) dyes. quite a few could likely be used as cosmetics — one could mix them with a binder such as vegetable oil or animal fat, or perhaps just simply apply them as juice. (not sure if you ever did this with beets or berries as a kid.)

i haven’t experimented with this too much though — i mostly focus on putting pigments on paper or cloth. many pigments tend to have a stronger affinity for “protein” — wool, silk, hide, and, to our benefit here, skin — than they do for “cellulose” (or in other words, other plant fibers / materials), although that’s not the case universally.

of course, much of what you can make depends on what grows / makes itself available in your region. alkanet, safflower, cochineal, henna, turmeric, wild madder and the like yield reds, yellows, and browns, but grow primarily in more sub-tropical climes. (alkanet is probably an exception, as northern europeans historically cultivated one more hardy species.)

other, more local candidates for yellow and red pigment: beets, pokeberries (many berries for that matter), certain types of pollen. cleavers (galium aparine) come fromt eh same family as madder, a historical red dye, and contain a similar red pigment in their roots.

pure blues are a little harder to come by, but one could obtain those through indigo-producing plants such as woad, various types of indigofera, or japanese indigo (a knotweed).

heat makes many of these pigments persnickity, and sometimes even permanently changes yellows and reds to browns. sometimes long slow soaks in water will extract pigment … at other times one must cook or otherwise process the plant parts. i would happily share detailed instructions on processing plant pigments if that’s something you would be interested in.

many pigments grow in the world! slowly i learn more about the ones that grow wild (rather than the ones that must be laboriously cultivated).

thanks for great articles.

-alesandra

1)Don’t wear makeup.

2)Don’t wear makeup very often, and don’t breathe the powder in while applying any dry forms.

Personally, I don’t wear makeup most of the time. That’s about 90%, or better, of my life. But I like having the option to not have to go shell out my monetary votes on encouraging the vanity of our society.

If I’m going to be “vain” or showy, I want it to reflect who I am- self-sufficient.
-Khatta

(Note Micron = .001 millimeters)
Visible particles are about 40 microns and asbestos ranges from .7 - 90 microns.

Particles that will make it to the lungs are about 10 microns, and talcum ranges from .5 - 50 microns.

Since obsidian can be flaked down to a molecular edge (~.005 microns) it seems perfectly reasonable to assume that grinding a mineral on a stone can create particles in the 10 micron range. Especially when the entire purpose of the grinding is to create a fine, even powder suitable for suspension in a medium for use as make up.
–
JimFive

Ultrafine particles from combustion are a known cancer risk- the right size passes through the lungs, into the blood stream, where they trigger inflammation everywhere. Talcum powder is also emerging as a risk for reproductive cancers (as it is used on bottoms) but the link isn’t rock solid yet. People have only started using industrial mica powders on their faces every day for a couple of years now. Do women really want to line up once again to be human guinea pigs for the make up industry? They are only just starting to admit the phenylene diamines in hair dyes cause bladder cancer. Women should have learnt the lesson with lead based white face paint and belladonna eye drops in the 18th century.