Mineral Makeup is a Great Choice for Oily Complexions
Oily skin can be difficult at best to maintain with its own unique set of rules. My own experience is to try to never break these rules! Cleansing is extremely important as well as using oil free products. Going to sleep without thoroughly washing the face is never an option. There are the unfortunate times when diligence is still not enough and the blemishes appear. One of the wonderful benefits of mineral makeup is that is fine to actually put it on a blemish! There just isn’t anything in the mineral makeup that is going to exacerbate the pimple problem!
The last thing an oily complexion needs is layers of pore-clogging ingredients applied on a daily basis. That is exactly what I did to my complexion for many years! I only wish I had discovered mineral makeup long before I did!
I personally know very few women who do not wear makeup on a daily basis. I know there are the exceptions with the gorgeous, genetically blessed skin that I so admire! The reality for the rest of us is some type of foundation to minimize those little flaws and imperfections. Those of us with very oily skin have a different dilemma. We want to cover imperfections without making our already troublesome skin more upset. We finally have a choice that just wasn’t available before mineral makeup! I tried every oil free liquid makeup I could find. I did wear liquid makeups that looked great on my skin. Some of those liquids had excellent coverage.
Unfortunately, my face felt so horribly dirty after an hour or so, all I could think about was getting my face washed as soon as possible! The reality of what I was doing to my skin occurred to me as I watched and listened to an infomercial about mineral makeup late one night. It made perfect sense to me, but what was this strange foundation I was hearing about for the first time? It did not contain any liquid, waxes or chemicals with names too long to pronounce. It only contained very finely ground earth minerals. I believed this new mineral makeup must be a face powder with a fancy name. I love face powder to control the oily shine, but it does not give any significant coverage. This infomercial product did have a money-back guarantee, so I decided to take the chance and try this mineral makeup they were advertising. The rest is history for me!
It has been at least two years since trying my first mineral makeup. I honestly can’t imagine going back to a liquid foundation. I live in the south where the summers are extremely humid. I could not wear foundation that would actually stay on my face anyway! Now I can look as if I’ve not wearing foundation, even in the bright sunlight the mineral makeup goes virtually undetected! I have developed some Rosacea and have not had a problem concealing it with any mineral makeup brand. I will admit the coverage is not as heavy as a traditional liquid foundation, but the benefits of mineral makeup far exceed the coverage limitations. My break outs have been greatly reduced. My skin just feels so much cleaner every day, even when the temperature is 97 degrees with the humidity in close pursuit of that number!
The ingredients in the mineral makeups vary from brand to brand, but they are all basically very finely milled minerals. I truthfully like every brand I have tried. There is a difference in prices. The mineral makeup you choose to purchase really depends on what your budget allows. Even with the difference in ingredients, I would still rather use the cheapest mineral makeup as opposed to the most luxuriously priced liquid. As I said before, coverage is not so much the issue for extremely oily skin, its about feeling clean and unclogged! I still get quite good coverage from each mineral makeup brand I have used. I started out with bareMinerals by Bare Essentials.
This makeup is fantastic and a little pricey for my budget. It is available through the QVC shopping network on television and on line at www.qvc.com . There is some of their mineral makeup available from Bare Escentuals at www.bareescentuals.com/id. I only buy this when I can splurge on myself. I also highly recommend Sheercover which is marketed by Leeza Gibbons and distributed by Guthy-Renker. This brand has great coverage. Sheercover is available at the Home Shopping Network at www.hsn.com. They have a trial-size starter kit available that is affordable for the amount of product received. Sheer Cover mineral makeup can also be purchased at www.sheercover.com. Neutrogena Mineral Sheers is readily available wherever Neutrogena products are sold. They also have a website at www.neutrogean.com. The mineral makeup listed on their website came in four colors plus a bronzer. There are actually more colors available in your local Walgreens! It is the most difficult to use and comes with the brush attached. It is also the most affordable of the three products mentioned. Mineral makeup is best applied with a good quality brush, therefore it is important to keep your brushes clean. Neutrogena’s mineral makeup brush cannot be cleansed, which is the proverbial “no, no” for oily skin. I usually shake Neutrogena’s mineral makeup into the cap and then apply with my own brushes.
I also love the ability to mix and customize shades with any brand of mineral makeup. They last for a very long time and a little goes a long way. They do not have an expiration date as with liquid makeups, so I can experiment with different brands and never worry about throwing the older mineral makeup away. I’m quite certain I will joyfully continue experimenting for a long time. The mineral makeup idea seems to be catching on with many companies. I’m seeing more and more brands becoming available in a mineral form and I hope to try most of them at least once! After all these years of “makeup misery”, I deserve it! Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that I am middle-aged and do have areas of my face that do not look as young as they once did! There is no problem with mineral makeup settling into little lines and such! (I refuse to say that word that begins with a “w”!) I do use a typical under-eye concealer with a creamy base in the delicate eye area. After all, we are lacking in oil glands there. There are mineral makeup brands that have an under eye concealer in the mineral form, but I do not find it has enough coverage or the texture I prefer for the dryer eye area. There are also endless colors of eye shadows and blushes available with most mineral makeup brands.
I am so pleased there is a mineral makeup option available for those of us with very active oil glands. I keep believing my oil production will eventually subside as I continue to age, but for now I am thrilled to put products on my face that make me look good and are good for my skin. Mineral makeup also has a natural SPF of 15, which is an added bonus. I highly recommend this type of makeup to women of all ages, especially the teenager with oily skin. If the younger ladies start using good mineral makeup at a young age, maybe they can be spared some of the problems I incurred. I certainly wish it had been available when I was young! I seriously believe it would have greatly reduced the blemishes I developed from constantly wearing makeup. For now, I’m off to find some new mineral makeup brands to try!
