Mainstream vs Natural Facepaint Smackdown

With Halloween coming up, your kids are probably hassling you about costumes. Mine certainly are! And with costumes comes facepainting. As you can imagine, I’m very careful about what I put on my kids’ faces. It’s natural facepaint all the way for me.

Now, it’s no secret that I’m completely smitten with No Nasties Makeup for kids. But I thought it would be super helpful if I showed you exactly what was in mainstream facepaints. So while I was in Spotlight, I grabbed a pack of Colorific Face Paint Cream to investigate.  Here’s what I found:

No Nasties Makeup

Ingredients: (Face Paint Mineral Powder) Mica, Zinc Oxide, May Contain (+/-) Tin Oxide, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxide, Ultramarines.

(Shimmer Balm) Organic Australian Beeswax, Fractionated Coconut Oil, Sweet Almond Oil, Mica, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Citrus Reticulata (Tangerine) Peel Essential Oil

The No Nasties natural facepaints are powders, so you can use them loose and apply with a brush. Or you can add a little water or oil to them to make the colours more vibrant. Keeping them in powder form means that you don’t need any preservatives, so there’s a win right there.

All the ingredients are good. The only thing that might make you raise your eyebrows are the ultramarines. Ultramarines are the colour pigments that give you the deep blues, greens and violets. They can be synthetic or natural. They’re safe enough, and although I probably wouldn’t choose to use them in makeup everyday, I don’t have a problem with them in facepaints.

Colorific Face Paint Cream

Ingredients: Aqua, Propylene Glycol, Stearic Acid, Cetyl Alcohol, Clyceryl Stearate & Peg – 100 Stearate, Paraffinium Liquidium & Tococopherol, Polyacrylamide & C13-C14 Isoparaffin, Triethanolamine, Phenoxyethanol, Methylparaben, Ethylparaben, Propylparaben, Butylparaben, Isobutylparaben. May contain: Red – D&C Red 7 Calcium Lake, Yellow – FD&C Yellow 5 Aluminum Lake; Blue – Ultramarine Blue; Black – Iron Oxide Black; White – Titanium Dioxide; Orange – Red – D&C Red 7 Calcium Lake, White – Titanium Dioxide; Purple – White – Titanium Dioxide; Purple – Ultramarine Violet; Pink – Red – D&C Red 7 Calcium, Lake White – Titanium Dioxide; Silver – Mica, Iron Oxide, Titanium Dioxide; Green – Yellow – FD&C Yellow 5, Aluminum Lake Blue – FD&C Blue 1 Aluminum Lake, White – Titanium Dioxide

The first ingredient is water. Water based products go off, which is why they need preservatives. And in this case, those preservatives are parabens: Methylparaben, Ethylparaben, Propylparaben, Butylparaben, and Isobutylparaben. Parabens are endocrine disrupters, and they’re definitely an ingredient to avoid.

There’s also propylene glycol, which is a penetration enhancer. Penetration enhancers decrease your skin’s barrier resistance. Chemicals are more easily absorbed into your body. That’s not a good thing when those chemicals are parabens.

There are also petrochemicals with the liquid paraffin and the C13-C14 Isoparaffin. I choose not to use petrochemical derived ingredients wherever possible because of the environmental concerns.

Triethanolamine is a skin toxicant and allergen, and polyacrylamide has contamination concerns, among other issues. There’s phenoxyethanol as a preservative, too.

And finally, there’s all the FD&C colours. Some of these, as you can see, have been mixed with aluminium to make them insoluble and stay on skin longer. Blue 1 is coal tar derived, too.

Even if you’re only putting face paints on to your children once or twice a year for Halloween and dress ups, these are not products I would be choosing. Especially when there are much safer alternatives, like No Nasties Makeup, available.

The Verdict

It’s easy to see why I choose No Nasties Makeup and Facepaints for my kids. My youngest loves play makeup and dress ups, and with a safe choice available, I’m happy to let him use them as often as he wants.

Colorific? Not so much. I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be letting my kids use this one at all. I’m sticking with natural facepaints, thank you!

About No Nasties Makeup

No Nasties Makeup is a range of all natural facepaints, play makeup and hair colours. They’re hand made in small batches, right here in Australia. There’s nothing toxic, no nasties and they all wash off with water. They’re perfect for the creative child!

Shop the range here at Hello Charlie.