Mineral Makeup : Beauty and Fashion Tech

A New Neutrogena Face: Mineral Sheers Powder Foundation, Sheer Highlighting Blush, and Nourishing Eye Duo

I love the new sheer blushes that are coming out. Neutrogena has a great one, along with a number of other new items, and I had the opportunity to put together a pretty nice look with some of them.

Neutrogena Mineral Sheers Powder Foundation Mineral Makeup

First off, Neutrogena Mineral Sheers Powder Foundation (above) is a great improvement on Neutrogena’s mineral sheers makeup line and it is refreshing to see so many new drugstore mineral makeup lines coming out. The powder foundation is easy to apply, and because it comes in a standard compact, you can also use your own brush . I recommend a stiff kabuki brush and personally use the Bare Escentuals Handy Buki Brush, which is my favorite for all mineral makeup applications. For those who need a supplied applicator though, it also has a sponge applicator in a little compartment in the compact.

I got a nice medium coverage and even finish from the foundation and was pleased to see that it was not cut with talc or bismuth. It contains soy for skin health and has an SPF of 20. It lasted fine through an evening and generally worked well with my dry to combination skin. The dry spots didn’t flake, and the oily part stayed generally matte. The shade classic Ivory worked fine with my very fair skin. I have recently taken to wearing this nearly every day when I want something to cover my hyperpigmentation a bit (I have mild melasma) and want extra SPF, but don’t want a heavily made up look. Overall it is a great drugstore mineral foundation.

Neutrogena Healthy Skin Blends Sheer Highlighting Blush (above) pairs nicely with the mineral foundation. I really love this blush. It is quite sheer with a light shimmer to create a glow that does not look overly glittery. Like many Neutrogena products, it also contains various skin conditioners. I tried the shade Vibrant, which worked well on my fair skin, but would likely work fine on medium to darker skin tones as well. Overall, it gives a fairly light look that is perfect for the upcoming spring and summer.

Another new product that I love is the Neutrogena Nourishing Eye Duo (above). I tried this in Starry Night, which has blue gray and silver gray shadows. The shadows contain soy silk and vitamins, and have a light shimmer. What I liked about the duo was that for a drugstore brand, they were pretty well pigmented and the shades in this line are particularly nice. They are all good basic shades that just about anyone could wear, so I might go back and buy one of the duos with brown shades. The shadow lasted well, and I had no creasing issues. Overall, this is a good value shadow set that is also good for your skin.Neutrogena products are available online and at most drugstores.

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The Beauty Blog Network at New York Fashion Week

A number of members of the Beauty Blog Network will be attending and posting about New York Fashion Week, which begins today! As much as I wish I could be there, I declined in order to go to Texas to visit family. But that doesn’t mean that you need to be left out on all of the fashion week news!

I have placed a widget near the end of the right hand column that will run a feed of all posts from the network that have “fashion week” in the text. So if you would like to follow along with all of the news, just keep an eye on that widget!

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Review: Maybelline Mineral Power Liquid Foundation

Maybelline has jumped on the mineral makeup bandwagon and released a full line of mineral cosmetics. It is also so new, that it isn’t on their website yet! However, it is in at Target and other stores, but selling out fast in my area of the Chicago suburbs.

Since I have been up to my ears in powder mineral makeup lately, I decided to give the liquid foundation a try first and will test the powder in upcoming weeks. However, if you are interested in the powder before then, Makeup Moxie has a great review of it. I also did note that it doesn’t seem to list fillers such as bismuth as an ingredient, and there appears to be a fairly decent range of shades, although I couldn’t get a great look at the store because so many were sold out!

The liquid mineral makeup is pretty darn good stuff with one big caveat– You need to have the skin type for it to see the best results. The coverage of the liquid mineral power is quite nice. Something more than sheer, but less than medium. I found it to be perfect for when you really need to cover up some redness but want your real skin to show through. It was not enough coverage to hide my melasma, but it was enough to lessen the appearance of it, which is what I often prefer for daytime looks anyway. At my age, less foundation is more, and I would rather have some spots showing through than look caked with makeup! The porcelain ivory shade was also perfect for me.

Unfortunately though, I don’t think the foundation is for me at this time of year when my skin is on the dry side. First off, it goes matte pretty fast. I would love that in the summer, but right now when I am a bit dry, it didn’t work as well. It wasn’t awful–I didn’t get overly flaky or anything–but I felt a bit too much on the dry side when I was wearing it.

Now here is where things get a bit interesting. When I first wrote this post, I was going to particularly recommend the Maybelline liquid minerals for oily skin because of its matte nature and because mineral makeup tends to be pretty friendly to acne prone skin. But then I read Jazmin’s review of it at Makeup Moxie. Jazmin, who was kind enough to let me use her photo of the product (Thanks!!!), has oily skin, and found that the foundation did not remain matte. In fact, she got oily again rather fast. The upshot is that I am beginning to think that this one is good for mainly normal skin that doesn’t go too far into the either the oily or dry side. Unfortunately, that limits its use for quite a few people!

The foundation also contains SPF 18. I imagine that I will happily use up the bottle that I purchased once spring arrives and I am ready for matte makeup again, but before summer when I start to get oily. If you like matte makeup, and don’t have partcualry oily or dry skin, you might want to give this a try. In that range, it is a nice makeup with a nice price tag to match.

One final note: Powder minerals tend to be quite freindly to dry skin, so hopefully that one will have a better skin type range. Keep watching for a future review!

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Pur Minerals Under Control Mattifying Gel

I was pretty impressed with the Pur Minerals Mattifying Gel for Oily Skin. I had a sample of this product sitting around for some time, and go figure that I was fairly oily during that time and forgot to give it a try! But as things turned out, on a day when I was a bit oilier than I would like, I found the sample.

The cream/gel has a light tint in the tube, but basically goes on clear. It blends in quickly, and it does a pretty good job as a mattifier. I often find that mineral makeup doesn’t quite absorb oil the way I would like, so I tried it underneath some mineral powder makeup and it did indeed make the difference. Where the powder alone would not have cut it, using Pur Mineral’s Under Control kept the oil from coming through.

The air will be keeping me dry soon, but until then, I am going happily use my tube up on the oily days.

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Mineral Fusion Special at Whole Foods Market

I have always loved Whole Foods Market. When I lived in Nebraska, I was jealous of my friends in Omaha who had one. Now that I am in Illinois, I have a Whole Foods Market, but I wish it were closer! I have reason to make another trip now.

Whole Foods is spending October focusing on natural makeup and will be carrying an exclusive “fresh face starter kit” by Mineral Fusion for $20 (a $120 value). In addition, as is fitting for the pink month of October, a portion of the proceeds will go to Pink United, a nonprofit organization focusing on fighting breast cancer.

The kit includes pressed base in two different shades, duo bronzer with a sheen glow and matte finish, a Kabuki brush, and hydration mist.

Whole Foods Market also has a great video on their mineral cosmetics that includes application instruction as well. You can view the video at the Be Good to Your Body Podcast Blog. You can also learn more at the Mineral Fusion website.

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Review: Everyday Minerals Mineral Makeup

After receiving a recommendation, I gave mineral makeup from Everyday Minerals a try. I had pretty good results and was also pleased to see that they provide samples for the cost of shipping.

I purchased samples of the mineral makeup in matte and intensive formulas. That package included a concealer that as far as I could tell was the same as the intensive coverage makeup. I also received a sample of blush and bought a selection of eye shadows.

I was pretty happy with the makeup. When I reviewed bareMinerals from bare escentuals, I had problems with bare minerals being too shiny for me. I had less of that issue with the Everyday Minerals. However, there was still a bit a of shine involved and I notice that mica is an ingredient. It generally was not enough to bother me though. I found that the regular matte provided an average to slightly sheer amount of coverage. The intensive provided a bit more cover and would be my permanent choice because I want to cover areas of melasma and hyperpigmentation. The matte could not quite do that. I think that overall, bare mineral from bare escentuals covers a bit better than even the intensive, but I like that everyday minerals is less shiny. It also is quite a bit cheaper.

The blush and the eye shadows were quite nice. I tend to like just about every mineral shadow and blush that I try, and these were no different. They were well pigmented, lasted a long time, and were nice shades.

Everyday minerals offers a huge variety of shades in warm, cool and neutral tones. I found that the fair shades are also very, very fair. It isn’t often that I find something that is way too light for my already fair skin, but I found it here. So if you are one of those women who can’t find makeup that is light enough, the fair shades of everyday minerals just might be what you are looking for! The company offers sample packs consisting of your choice of three shades of makeup, a concealer, and a blush for the cost of shipping. So it is easy to try out some shades before committing to a full purchase.

Everyday minerals is free of preservatives and fillers. So those who avoid things like parabens and bismuth will want to check them out. When browsing the company’s website, I also came across a page comparing ingredients that shows the ingredients of both everyday minerals and other brands of mineral makeup.

Overall, I was happy with Everyday Minerals. They provide a nice selection of products at a pretty good price.

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Bare Escentuals bareMinerals Starter Kit: Mineral Makeup, Brushes, Blush and Bronzer

Bare Minerals Starter Kit I really like mineral foundation/makeup, but for whatever reason, it had been years since I used bareMinerals foundation from Bare Escentuals. I use their eye shimmers pretty often and just love those, but I had been experimenting with other brands when it came to foundation. I recently decided to give them a new try and purchased the Starter Collection at Ulta(pictured). The Ulta collection is one of many starter kits that are out there, and they all are slightly different regarding the items in them. It turns out that the starter kit at Amazon.comis a bit cheaper, as are some from Sephora and QVC (see the shopping link at the end of this post). So it does pay to comparison shop a bit. If you have an Ulta or Sephora Store near you, they both carry the line in the store. I have also seen Bare Escentuals stores in some malls.

My kit came with 3 brushes (kabuki, concealer, and powder brushes), two foundation shades, Mineral Veil powder (an illuminating light powder), a blush (Glee), and a bronzer (Warmth). It also included a booklet and DVD on how to use the line. Glee is a mineral blush that I like quite a bit. It is heavily pigmented, so a tiny bit goes a long way on pale skin such as mine. The amount of pigment makes it quite versatile and I imagine that it would work well on just about all levels of skin tones and shades. It also is generally a universally flattering shade. Warmth is a bronzer that also worked OK for me. It too is quite pigmented, and I found that I had to be very careful using it on my pale skin. I think those with medium skin tones would like it better.

The brushes were quite useful and nice. I find a stiffer kabuki brush to be ideal for applying mineral makeup and the Bare Escentuals brush was just right for me. There was also a nice concealer brush and a soft powder brush. The brushes initially shed a few hairs, which is common with new brushes, especially cheaper ones. But after the initial shedding, the brushes were great. They are a bit smaller in size, but I like that both for storage and portability. Plus I already own a few large kabuki and powder brushes. Having some smaller ones is nice.

Unfortunately, my re-try of the Bare Minerals foundation and Mineral Veil powder produced mixed results. On the good side, the minerals go on smoothly and with great coverage, even over melasma and hyperpigmented areas. That was just as nice as I remembered. The makeup also lasts well and has a built in SPF factor that physically blocks rays. That is my preference in sunscreen for the face. The kit I bought came with two different foundation shades, and I got the best results by mixing them because the darker one was about the right level for me, but a bit too yellow. The mix fixed that.

Now for the bad side. I really don’t remember Bare Minerals being so shiny before. The Mineral Veil powder is a lovely light shade that seems like it would be a great illuminating powder, but on me it was too illuminating. It was so shiny that I just looked like I had really oily skin. Yuck! Thinking that perhaps I had put too much on, I tried using just a tiny bit the next time. That went a bit better, but it was still too shiny. So the Mineral Veil powder just won’t work for me. When I tried the foundation alone, I found that it too was a bit shiny. It was not nearly as bad as when I used the Mineral Veil, but nevertheless, there was still a slight shine to it that I can live with yet would prefer that it not be there. When I reviewed Jane Be Pure Mineral Makeupone reader mentioned the shine in bareMinerals and a couple of readers suggested trying Everyday Minerals. So I might try Everyday Minerals next.

Overall, I really love some of the Bare Escentuals products. The blush is nice, as are the eye shimmers. With the foundation, if you want a lot of illumination from your mineral makeup, give bareMinerals a try, but if shine concerns you, then I suggest avoiding the Mineral Veil and/or trying in the store first before shelling out a lot of money.

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