Makeup That's Good For You

Warning! Blatent product endorsement to follow!

Makeup that's good for you? What? How can a makeup be good for your skin? Makeup isn't supposed to feel good, is it? It's just another of the many masks we women hide behind, meant to change the way we look and the way we feel about our appearance, but nowhere in that product description are the words "good for your skin." In fact, read the product labels of just about any readily available type of makeup today. Go on, I dare you. It's a chemical palette, right down to the dye and filler. Most of it feels terrible on the skin, too, or at least it does for me. In fact, I usually go without base because I have fairly dry skin, and when I put on my moisturizer and follow it with liquid foundation, it dries out again almost immediately. Yech!

The answer to my dilemma came in the form of an upper-middle-aged woman, blocking my cart in the narrow isle of our local co-op store while she tried on a new type of makeup. Not wanting to ask her to move her cart while her face was being made up, I stood there and watched. After a couple of minutes, the other woman had moved on and I was still there, asking the girl behind the counter to show me some of the blush. Next thing I knew, I had a foundation color as well, and things just sort of snowballed. See what happens when you block my cart?

Larenim comes in the form of micronized powdered minerals, so it's perfectly natural and works with your skin instead of against it. Apparently, mineral makeup is all the rage in hollywood right now, and I can see why. It actually feels like you're not wearing any makeup, and you can sleep in it. Good news for this night owl! It is a natural sunblock and won't clog pores--people have claimed that their skin improved after they switched over to this type of makeup. Even the foundation has only five--yes, five--ingredients, and their range of colors is amazing. Check it out, goth girls, there's also a special line just for you.

Yesterday I went to the co-op and was one of the lucky few to have a makeup consult with Kirsten Corcoran, the founder of Larenim. Nice lady, great product, deserving of kudos and more than a few of my hard-earned dollars. I even brought my older daughter, who made out like a bandit and came home with her own first set of foundation and blush.

Color me impressed.