My concern with makeup lies in its ingredients. We know that to some degree our bodies do absorb the chemicals we apply to our skin. The Environmental Protection Agency has an interesting article on its website called the "Dermal Exposure Assessment." They review studies of skin absorption using mice, rats, and other unlucky lab animals and discuss the factors that increase absorption rates. Factors that increase our skin's absorption of toxic chemicals (or beneficial skin treatments for that matter) are the following:
• If your skin is damaged, your absorption rate will be much higher.
And to a lesser degree:
• Areas with fine, tender skin will absorb more.
• Areas with more hair will absorb more.
• If your body is warmer (as it is in a bath or shower), you will absorb more.
• Older skin absorbs more.
The more delicate skin on our bodies is more likely to absorb chemicals according to the FDA link above. The skin on our face is certainly delicate, particularly the area around our eyes.
For our body to process these chemicals requires nutrients. If we need nutrients to fight depression, we need to reduce our chemical exposure because that exposure is using up our nutrients. Chemicals can also impact depression more directly if you are overexposed or otherwise in compromised health.
So what we put on our skin can affect our overall health. In an ideal world, we would wear no makeup. And most of my days at home I do not wear any. But when I'm out and about or at business meetings, I do like to wear makeup.
The mineral makeup products available today are a decent solution to my problem. There aren't really any products safer except for the "no product" option.
In my search I've tried a variety of products and have landed on my favorite. Sheer Miracle has a good product at very affordable prices. They make it easy to try the product by offering starter kit samples that include foundation, blush, and powder combinations in different complexion colors. I got a kit for fair skin and it included two different foundations and blushes. I've since ordered the full-size versions.
They have a nice assortment of eye shadow and liners.
I have only one warning: don't put the makeup on in the dark. At least one of the blush colors looks a whole lot like the "flesh" colored eye shadow. You might very easily put the blush on your eyelid and spend half of your day with blush on your eyelid before you even realize it. But if you are going to do this, make sure it's a day that you are handing out invitations to a clown parade because then people might think you planned it.
@ Amazon.
