THE ORGANIC MAKE-UP COMPANY REVIEWS - MAKEUP & SKINCARE

[Vanessa Dennis]

Hello everyone,

It looks like The Organic Make-up Company is causing a real stirr here and in other cosmetic and vegan messageboards.

I guess its because they are new and some even say they're innovative. Their website (www.organicmakeup.ca) is different as it looks more like a natural skin care portal rather than an online site selling their product only. I haven't seen any other company go to their lengths to offer a complete information package for all their clients.

As one person said, for a one year old company this brand is on the right track as they've already exceeded many competitors in offering a nearly complete range of skincare and makeup products.

Today, it seems the purest natural cosmetic companies include The Organic Makeup Company, Miessence, Living Nature and a few others.

As for the Organic Makeup Company, I have tried their complete line and am quite pleased as I am both concerned about product quality and value.

Regarding the makeup line, they have good formulations and have kept it vegan. In addition, I was happy to hear that they also look at particle sizes so that the skin does not absorb all the makeup. People have said the products do last long and layers well to accomodate people's skin tones. Overall the current color selection is close to some of the Bobbi Brown's and MAC's out there. The lipstick is long lasting and the lip gloss applies very well.

For those new to natural makeups, you really don't feel that the makeup is on your face. It is that light and you feel refreshed as the natural oils makes your face smell great and you don't smell the chemical soup that you smell from regular makeup lines. As mentioned in another forum, they are the only natural makeup line at a professional makeup artists stores servicing artists that work on theatre, stage and movie sets.

As for the skin care lines, they perform just as well, if not better than the makeup. It was a shame that the moderator could not open their jar of the mud mask, but it does wonders. Other products worth mentioning is the face cream where 3 drops will provide enough coverage for the whole face and the face oil will help take some of those wrinkles away.

They're also a credible brand as one of the messages in the forum also noted they were featured on national TV in a 60 Minutes type interview which included Whole Foods in a segment discussing the natural cosmetics industry and how few true brands there were, though many claim to be natural. The Organic Makeup Co was recognized as one of those few brands that were pure and are experts in this field.

Overall, I have found the line value priced and performs much like lines I used to buy like Estee Lauder, Elizabeth Arden, Clinque and Aveda would be fair comparisons, but are priced below these brands.

The only issue I have is that because they are so new, distribution is limited but have heard here that Amazon.com and Natural Solutions at www.bewellstaywell.com will be listing them soon for distribution in the States and other countries.

[Joan]

Hello!

It was good to read your post. I just ordered from the Organic Makeup Company, having searched the Internet for mineral makeup that is not micronized. I had been using Bare Minerals for a few years, and I had never heard of nanotechnology untiil yesterday when I was researching sunscreens. I came upon very disturbing information regarding nanoparticles of titanium dioxide that coud pass the skin barrier and pose a potential high risk.

I'm glad to hear a good review about the Organic Makeup Company since I really was very happy with Bare Minerals and thought there would be nothing out there quite like it.

I have a call into Real Purity to find out if their blushes which contain titanium dioxide and mica are micronized.

Does anyone have any solution to the problem of a safe sunscreen? I had been using Absolutely Natural, but found out today that the titanium dioxide they use is micronized, so I will not use it.

Hope to share information about cosmetic solutions here with others.

Joan

[emily]

HI

Check out UV Natural at http://www.oasisadvancedwellness.com/products/uv-natural-sunscreen.html

This product is really good. Besides having good ingredients I like the fact that it is safe for the whole family to use---babies up to adults. Also they have a sunscreen for those involved in sports.

Hope this helps.

Emily

[Joan]

Hi Emily,

I checked out the website and the sunscreen. While it has a lot of good things in it, and doesn't have a lot of bad things...it contains MICRONIZED minerals. I stumbled upon disturbing information recently regarding a newer technology whereby particles of substances that have been known to be safe for generations can now be micronized, made so small, that they take on different characteristics and penetrate the skin! Apparently a substance is innocent until proven guilty, and God knows what the potential risk is over time of this very unnatural process.

Do a search on nonparticles and sunscreen or titanium dioxide (considered safe in its natural form as a sunscreen) and nanoparticles and you will see some disturbing research.

I think at least labels should indicate whether a substance is micronized or not so that consumers know what they are getting!

Joan

[Guest]

Hi Joan--

What is wrong with micronized minerals other than that they are smaller and more readily absorbed? I read somewhere that people are very mineral difficient. Some every say that micronized minerals are very healing to the body. I have also heard natural doctors say that everything that is put on the skin is absorbed to some degree and will usually go directly into the bloodstream.

I really like the UV Natural as it has done a great job for my family and I have not found anything that is safer. I also like the fact that it has been tested in the Australian sun. I was dismayed to see some of the ingredients in the sunscreens in my health food store that were labeled as all-natural.

I think that there is still debate about the safeness of titanium dioxide and some companies are removing it from their products. Most of the time you will find that the ones that say it is safe are the companies that are using it. I guess that is with anything, though.

I have learned also not to always trust governmental studies or studies done by chemical/pharmaceutical companies. For 20 years it may be considered safe and then they find out that it really isn't. Who knows? But when the studies are unsure, that means I will be "very" unsure.

I did do some research. The following is from a natural make-up site:

Titanium dioxide, a compound whose toxicity remains unclear. Researchers now say the chemical can be absorbed by human skin. The compound's full effects on human health are still under investigation. The U.S. government's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) labels the chemical "a potential occupational carcinogen." Skin & Allergy News (February 1997, p. 15). Dr. Samuel Epstein, Toxicologist and author of "Safe Shopper's Bible", says that in dust form, not liquid, it can cause irritation to the lungs. While research is still required to prove the toxicity of Titanium Dioxide, Living Nature feels if there are any health risks with raw materials used in their products, it is not up to the consumer to find out. They have now removed this material from their formulations and have replaced it with Zinc. But it is still in a few of our other cosmetics and also a main ingredient in the Caribbean Pacific's sunscreen brand.

I guess that it isn't the most toxic ingredient that is put into sunscreens, I like to stay away from those ingredients that may "possibly" be harmful, as much as possible. I read on one site that titanium dioxide does not filter out all the rays. Not sure if that is true or not.

Enjoying this conversaton.

Emily

[Joan]

Hi Emily,

Thank you for your post. Your perspective balances my less optimistic view.

I hope you are right!

Joan

Here is a quote from one of the disturbing articles I read and a link to the url of the ETC group which posted it:

http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Nanotech/nosmallmatter.html

What?s the big deal? So what if nanoparticles, even inorganic ones, enter cells or accumulate in the liver? So what if they bring some unsavory partners with them? How much harm can a nano-sized speck of anything do? Even a whole bunch of nano-sized specks? The big deal may lie in the unique nature of the technology?s scale. The impetus behind nanotechnology as a field of research?the reason it has attracted four billion research dollars worldwide?derives from the fact that materials act in different, sometimes useful, often unpredictable ways at the nano-scale. A substance that is red when it is a meter wide may be green when its width is only a few nanometers; something that is soft and malleable on the macro-scale may be stronger than steel at the nano-scale. A single gram of a catalyst material that is made of particles 10 nanometers in diameter is about 100 times more reactive than the same amount of the same material made of particles one micrometer in diameter (1000 times bigger than a nanometer).16. The changes in color, strength and reactivity that are observable at the nanoscale are attributed solely to the reduction in the size of the particles. The point is we don?t know what accumulated amounts of any human-made nanomaterial will do in our lungs or our livers or in our groundwater, even if we do know how bigger particles of the same material behave in our lungs and livers and groundwater. And so far no one has bothered to find out.

The Future is Now: At the same time that properties of nano-sized elements and compounds are being intensively researched in hopes of near-future applications in the electronics and biomedical and food industries, the materials science industry is already producing nanomaterials in bulk quantities. For example, Nanophase, Inc., based outside Chicago (IL, USA), sells nine different nanoparticle compounds available in formats tailored to different applications: from zinc oxide and titanium dioxide nanoparticles bought by sunscreen manufacturers for their ability to block UV light to nanoscale antimony tin oxide (used in coatings and paints) to iron oxide and cerium oxide (used as catalysts). Nanophase shipped out over 250 tons of zinc oxide nanoparticles last year.

A Rose is a Rose, but not by every measure? With some important exceptions (see below for a discussion of carbon nanoparticles), most nanoparticles that are produced today are mini-versions of particles that have been produced for a long time. While the larger versions have undergone testing and regulation, their tiny siblings haven?t. But it is crucially important to ask whether or not a nanoparticle of a compound or an element or an approved drug is the same as a macroparticle of the same substance. The nanoparticle and the macroparticle may be called by the same name and they may be composed of the same stuff but they won?t look or act the same. If nanotech companies are forced to defend their products, will they borrow familiar arguments from their biotech colleagues to try to lessen regulatory burden? On the one hand, we?re told that the products are so wonderfully novel, they deserve monopoly patent protection; on the other hand, they?re not so very different and they do not require special regulatory oversight.

Same Old Stuff? Will government regulatory agencies like the FDA develop guidelines to regulate a new nanoscale industry? The following example suggests that the fragmented and case-by-case method of overseeing the biotech industry is likely to prevail in the age of nanotech as well: while an FDA panel was working to establish regulations for ingredients in over-the-counter sunscreen products, there was some discussion about whether nanoscale titanium dioxide was a new ingredient or whether it was the same ingredient as the larger scale titanium dioxide particles that had already been approved for use. For starters, the nanoscale titanium dioxide no longer met the definition of a "sunscreen opaque sunblock" because, at the nanoscale, titanium dioxide particles are transparent rather than opaque. Also, nanoscale titanium dioxide is not included in the US Pharmacopeia (USP), a collection of over 3,800 monographs establishing standards for pharmaceuticals; and, it was noted, there is a potential for nanoparticles to accumulate under the skin. In the end, the FDA panel did not consider nanoscale titanium dioxide to be a new ingredient, but rather a specific grade of the already approved titanium dioxide. The panel omitted opacity as a criterion for OTC sunscreens and stated, "the agency is not aware of any evidence at this time that demonstrates a safety concern from the use of [nanoscale] titanium dioxide in sunscreen products." 17.

[emily]

Hi Joan,

Thanks for the article. Very interesting. Maybe we could liken this to a block of salt. It is usually opaque (depending on the type of salt) when it is a block but when chiseled down into the salt that we use for our food, the crystals will be a little clearer. It is still salt...and because it is smaller it can now be used in many different ways. Some is even ground finer than others. There are a lot of elements that may change color when they are made smaller, but I don't think this is necessarily something to be worried about. This is just something that came to my mind.

The article says that the macroparticles have been tested and regulated. There are many companies that put chemcals in their personal care products that have been "approved" for safety. Yet they are not safe. I don't know that regulation is the answer for complete safety as they don't seem to be doing a good job now. And I would guess that the cosmetic industry does a lot of lobbying.

Also comparing nanoparticles to biotech may be a strawman argument.

I think that when new technology comes out we see some who embrace it and some who stand back and are skeptical. My issue with titanium dioxide is that it is "possibly" carcenogenic and can be irritating to the skin.

I was told by a dermatologist that skin problems are really on the rise. He said it could be because of all the products (chemicals that are approved) that we put on the body. A chemical may be fine for use for a while or every few days, but when used every day for a long period it can begin to build up in body tissues.

We probably will not hear much from the government on this and even if we do, it would be wise to look further to see if there is possibly an agenda---one way or the other.

Emily

[Joan]

Emily,

You make good points.

I'll keep checking these boards to watch for any new information.

Thank you for your replies, and all the best!

Joan

[Guest]

Nano is not the same as "micro", just to clear that up!

[Guest]

[james64]

interesting site! keep up the good work!
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[sdlcoach]

My favorite sunscreens for the beach or long hours outdoors is Lavera. The sunscreen contains natural ingredients and are not micronized.
Also, I really like SkinBiology DayCover for a daily facial moisturizer. I also use unrefined Shea Butter and virgin Coconut Oil for mild sunscreens.

[danielleA]

Hi Guys,

I'm new to the post, and I wanted to give out some info on some great chemical-free sunscreens that I've been using: ECOLANI (www.ecolani.com). They are made by a doctor living with skin cancer, in Berkeley California. I love them! Her ingredients are totally clean, and the smell is amazing... Coral reef safe too, great for surfers! She does use titanium dioxide, but from what I can tell it's not micronized. The highest she goes is SPF 25, her thoughts being that anything higher in an SPF is potentially dangerous and unecessary...

I wish to address the issue of titanium dioxide as well: it is a mineral that in it's powder from is potentially carcinogenic, as it can be very dangerous to inhale. This goes for ANY substance in a powder form! When blended into a cream, the titanium dioxide is no longer a threat to the lungs, and creates the perfect shield to bounce UVA and UVB rays. If you research titanium dioxide thuroughly, it is very easy to find lots of negative info on the substance, but I believe that this is due to the conventional cosmetic industry feeling it's Parasol 1789 and other chemical screens coming under fire...
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