The “Why Not” To Pressed Mineral Powders!

Below is a letter I recently received from a customer, and this same question has been asked by others. Though many think pressed powders are great for travel and ease of application, I have decided not to include these in our product line and I will explain the reason behind my decision. It isn’t just as simple as these compacts being fragile if dropped, disintegrating into their original form before they were pressed, but what you may actually be putting on your face everyday without even realizing it. A portion of that letter that spurred this article is below:

Hello,

I really love your foundation. I've had a lot of compliments since wearing them and I haven't broke out in acne ever since. Anyways, I am emailing you because I want to know if in the future, have you thought about having the foundation in a compact?

Jane B.
Honolulu, HI

Pressed powders have been around for generations and are great for touchups and may be convenient for women on the go. However, in order to have mineral powders put into a pressed compact, it requires adding moisture in the form of aqueous solutions of either distilled water, hydrosols, botanical extracts or essential oils for skin conditioning to get the finished product. When you do this, you now have created an environment that will require preservatives to keep the powder from having bacteria grow out of control. Moisture promotes bacteria, mold and yeast growth if not preserved with a bacteriostatic. This also in turn creates the need for more ingredients to make a pressed mineral powder, whereby increasing a possibility to having skin sensitivity issues.

There are some that have created pressed minerals with very little additives such as using just Jojoba Oil, Waxes or Essential Oils in order to press the powder into a compact. These may be able to be preservative free, or claims made to being naturally preserved and may not promote the growth of bacteria, but the reality is they don’t kill bacteria either that are introduced to the powder. Literally, every time you touch the pad or brush to your face and then back onto the compact you are introducing bacteria repeatedly until such time as you have a large colony of the “nasties” living in your compact. Although you may not see or smell a problem, microbes are there waiting to be reintroduced to your skin, so what was once a pure and clean powder is now contaminated with dead skin cells, sebum and dirt.

Loose powders really are the only way to get the cleanest application each and every time you use them. So this is the very important reason behind not offering minerals in compact form since based on the probability of a bacteria prone environment, the alternative would be to use an exceptional preservative system which in many cases can include different types of parabens, and this is just not the direction I wish to go. Just pick up a compact someday at your local drugstore or view ingredient lists online for mineral makeup in compacts and you will see an extensive list of ingredients, some of which are preservatives.

I am looking into carrying a portable makeup brush that either holds the powder within the brush or stands alone in its’ own case and using your minerals from one of our smaller mixing jars for on the go travel.

I will keep you posted as I progress in my research to create a more portable solution. For now, giving you excellent skin health takes priority for me, over convenience.