My funny and indomitable mother was named Gertrude Alice Keebler. Of course she hated that. So she set about changing her identity and became Kay (for Keebler, her last name). I've always admired her for that – to be a young woman in the 1930's and make such an assertion stick was no minor accomplishment.
Though happily known as Kay by friends and family all her life, she did concede a bit to officialdom by signing checks and other legal documents as G. Alice Keebler, then after marriage, G. Alice Gray. When choosing her headstone, her heirs felt a moment’s indecision, but in the end, we opted for what we knew she would want, G. Alice Gray.
So what about Alice? A perfectly nice though under-used name. An accessible, welcoming name. A name that took second place to an initial! Alice it was.
Of course there is that other Alice—the one created by Lewis Carroll in 1865 and the one I studied as a graduate student in Oxford once upon a time. Clearly books for adults as well as children, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are classics along with their beloved namesake. Carroll’s Alice is always curious, always adventurous, always undaunted.
Not a bad thing to hitch our wagon to her star, linking our search for beauty as we age gracefully with her enchanted travels through the looking glass.
Copyright Alice Cosmetics 2008. All rights reserved.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Mineral Makeup Madness:
The Three Types of Mineral Makeup Companies
Too Hot, Too Cold, Just Right
Already irritated by the misconceptions out there about mineral makeup, I dared to watch several of the many mineral makeup videos on YouTube tonight. As varied in quality as the brands now available, most were too long, too dull, too slow, and too out of focus to keep me interested. Making matters worse is that some of the best brands do not appear to be represented at all, good video or bad.
Let's be clear. There are three main types of mineral makeup companies. One consists of Bare Minerals, also called Bare Escentuals, and the half dozen or so others of that ilk. With their huge budgets and appetite for QVC time, these companies have become a new "main" stream of makeup, the big boxes of the field.
Bare Escentuals is by far the dominant player and its product is excellent. The problem is that its formulas contain not only bismuth oxychloride and other ingredients that irritate the skin (in many cases causing breakouts and itchiness) but also some of the preservatives their "purity" claims would seem to deny. The list of ingredients on a jar of mineral veil, for example, includes methylparaben and propylparaben, two of the most toxic preservatives used in makeup, and BE uses cornstarch as well (disguised as "zea mays"), which is a cheap filler and a vegetable, not a mineral.
Jane Iredale's product line, Leeza Gibbons' Sheer Cover, and Youngblood (the latter available only in spas and salons) are also in this class of mineral makeup giants. Jane Iredale offers much more than mineral makeup but tries to make the case that makeup and skin care can be one in the same. They cannot. Makeup is makeup, and no matter how many "natural" ingredients are put into her formulas, from burdock root to aloe gel to oatmeal derivatives and supposed anti-aging ingredients, it is simply wrong to confuse cosmetics with a good skin care regimen, the essential requirement of which by the way a good face washing twice a day. Please, don't sleep in your makeup.
Many of these companies (and some of the small ones and the mainstream ones) offer pressed powders and liquid versions of mineral makeup, which are virtually a contradiction in terms: as soon as moisture of any kind is introduced, it gives the product a shelf life, i.e., bacteria can thrive in moist environments. The best kinds of mineral makeup really do stick to the pure ingredients and have no expiration date. These primary ingredients are titanium dioxide, mica, zinc oxide, iron oxides, and several others. If there are more than seven or eight ingredients in any formula, be circumspect.
The second category of mineral makeup company (of which beware) comprises all the mainstream brands of makeup from Revlon to Almay that have jumped onto the bandwagon and created "mineral makeups" for the drug store shelves, many with celebrity endorsements. While some claim "no preservatives," their lists of ingredients are so long and so tiny-typefaced that one has to wonder whether simply the inclusion of minerals in the formulas alone is what entitles them to use the phrase mineral makeup.
Finally, the third category of mineral makeup company consists of small, independent mineral makeup companies, likely to be available only on the internet, and clamoring for whatever portion of the market they can capture. The websites of many of these brands are amateurish and too busy with Google ads and bells and whistles to allow smooth navigation. But it is in this category that the best of the best mineral makeup resides. There seems to be a trend back to the original concept of mineral makeup, i.e., pure, ground minerals from the earth applied directly to the face with a brush, and this is a good thing. These companies can be found in organic search results and in the pay-per-click ads in the right-hand column of Google searches.
Read your ingredient labels, try samples before you buy, and beware the ones that lowball their pricing and offer steep discounts – they appear desperate and may be using unnecessary fillers to trim costs.
Copyright Alice Cosmetics 2008. All rights reserved.
Too Hot, Too Cold, Just Right
Already irritated by the misconceptions out there about mineral makeup, I dared to watch several of the many mineral makeup videos on YouTube tonight. As varied in quality as the brands now available, most were too long, too dull, too slow, and too out of focus to keep me interested. Making matters worse is that some of the best brands do not appear to be represented at all, good video or bad.
Let's be clear. There are three main types of mineral makeup companies. One consists of Bare Minerals, also called Bare Escentuals, and the half dozen or so others of that ilk. With their huge budgets and appetite for QVC time, these companies have become a new "main" stream of makeup, the big boxes of the field.
Bare Escentuals is by far the dominant player and its product is excellent. The problem is that its formulas contain not only bismuth oxychloride and other ingredients that irritate the skin (in many cases causing breakouts and itchiness) but also some of the preservatives their "purity" claims would seem to deny. The list of ingredients on a jar of mineral veil, for example, includes methylparaben and propylparaben, two of the most toxic preservatives used in makeup, and BE uses cornstarch as well (disguised as "zea mays"), which is a cheap filler and a vegetable, not a mineral.
Jane Iredale's product line, Leeza Gibbons' Sheer Cover, and Youngblood (the latter available only in spas and salons) are also in this class of mineral makeup giants. Jane Iredale offers much more than mineral makeup but tries to make the case that makeup and skin care can be one in the same. They cannot. Makeup is makeup, and no matter how many "natural" ingredients are put into her formulas, from burdock root to aloe gel to oatmeal derivatives and supposed anti-aging ingredients, it is simply wrong to confuse cosmetics with a good skin care regimen, the essential requirement of which by the way a good face washing twice a day. Please, don't sleep in your makeup.
Many of these companies (and some of the small ones and the mainstream ones) offer pressed powders and liquid versions of mineral makeup, which are virtually a contradiction in terms: as soon as moisture of any kind is introduced, it gives the product a shelf life, i.e., bacteria can thrive in moist environments. The best kinds of mineral makeup really do stick to the pure ingredients and have no expiration date. These primary ingredients are titanium dioxide, mica, zinc oxide, iron oxides, and several others. If there are more than seven or eight ingredients in any formula, be circumspect.
The second category of mineral makeup company (of which beware) comprises all the mainstream brands of makeup from Revlon to Almay that have jumped onto the bandwagon and created "mineral makeups" for the drug store shelves, many with celebrity endorsements. While some claim "no preservatives," their lists of ingredients are so long and so tiny-typefaced that one has to wonder whether simply the inclusion of minerals in the formulas alone is what entitles them to use the phrase mineral makeup.
Finally, the third category of mineral makeup company consists of small, independent mineral makeup companies, likely to be available only on the internet, and clamoring for whatever portion of the market they can capture. The websites of many of these brands are amateurish and too busy with Google ads and bells and whistles to allow smooth navigation. But it is in this category that the best of the best mineral makeup resides. There seems to be a trend back to the original concept of mineral makeup, i.e., pure, ground minerals from the earth applied directly to the face with a brush, and this is a good thing. These companies can be found in organic search results and in the pay-per-click ads in the right-hand column of Google searches.
Read your ingredient labels, try samples before you buy, and beware the ones that lowball their pricing and offer steep discounts – they appear desperate and may be using unnecessary fillers to trim costs.
Copyright Alice Cosmetics 2008. All rights reserved.
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