Can You Use Art Supplies To Make Your Own DIY Cosmetics?
Submitted by Beauty Brains Blog
Heather has a hunch: I’m fed up with paying even drugstore prices for make-up. I’m ready to put on one of those scary little Michael Jackson surgical masks,some latex gloves and an herb grinder and make my own face paint. As you can tell, I’m cheap. I spent all weekend trying to find the most ingredients for the least money. Mica pigments seem to be the one thing I need the most variety of, but I find that mica from art supply websites are much cheaper by the ounce than from a cosmetic supply site. Would they be just as safe to use?
The Right Brain replies:
You’ll need more than a scary Michael Jackson mask to protect you if you’re going to unsafe ingredients! Remember, other industries don’t have to adhere to the same safety standards as the cosmetic industry .
Safety first
For example, for cosmetic grade mica, the FDA limits the amount of trace heavy metals they may contain:
Lead (as Pb), not more than 20 parts per million.
Arsenic (as As), not more than 3 parts per million.
Mercury (as Hg), not more than 1 part per million.
Mica used in art supplies does NOT have to conform to these specifications. Therefore, you may be making cosmetics with unsafe levels of metals and you’d never know it.
Furthermore, on at least one occasion, the FDA has raised concerns that certain processes used to create mica pigments can lead to undesirable chemical residues. In such cases, the FDA instructed the manufacturers that their products were not safe for use in cosmetics. But there’s nothing to stop manufacturers from using these contaminated micas in arts and crafts products.
The Beauty Brains bottom line
We’re all about do it yourself cosmetics, but you’ve got to put safety first. Buying ingredients not approved for use in cosmetics just because they’re cheap is not a good approach. Being rich and beautiful doesn’t do you much good if you’re dead.
