Mineral Makeup or Organic Lipstick?

Mineral makeup and organic lipstick go hand in hand together. While there are a lot of companies that use plant based ingredients, there are many companies now that chose to focus on the minerals. Thus in order to achieve the colors and other lipstick features, they add the inert minerals.

Technically these products cannot be called organic. Organic makeup or anything organic in general can only refer to plant based products, specifically to those farmed on organic farms. So people thinking that mineral make up and organic makeup are the same are mixing up two different concepts.

However, this is not to say that mineral makeup cannot be natural. Most of the components used in such makeup products are naturally derived minerals abundant in nature. And for the most part they are inert and considered safe. Examples of natural mineral makeup brands are Jane Iredale. They have a mineral based lipstick in the lineup as well.

Another popular online brand of organic skin care and makeup is Miessence. It is a brand sold through representatives and you can find plenty of them online. The point is that their lipstick (or lip cream) contains mineral based pigments.

So should you be looking for organic lipstick or mineral makeup line’s lipstick? My take on it is that you should first make sure that regardless of what the product claims in the promo, check the actual ingredients. There are way too many lipsticks claiming to be natural that contain questionable ingredients. And way to many mineral makeup lines riding the natural publicity wave but having questionable content.

Then, once you are satisfied with ingredients, test for nano particles. Many mineral based makeup products have very tiny particles. However, nano minerals do not act the same as regular sized minerals, and may actually be dangerous to health.

For ingredients, consult cosmeticsdatabase.com

For nanotechnology, unfortunately, you can’t read it off the package. There is no regulation yet for anyone to disclose if they use it or not. As I mentioned a few posts ago, Canada might come up with a legislation for control. But for now you just have to do the research and contact the manufacturer.

If you are really set on mineral makeup, check out Jane Iredale. They state plainly that they are natural and nano free. And that’s a good start. Especially when it comes to something like lipstick. This might not be an organic lipstick, but at least its trying to be natural.