Flawed: What we do to appear Flawless

I have a secret, and I’m going to share it.  I have found a holy grail among “natural” undereye concelears.

I’m going to preface my disclosure with another disclosure:  my current favorite undereye concealer is not as clean as the company would have you believe (their slogan is “Clean-Natural-Beauty”)

I’m also going to rationalize my use of this product by confessing that I suffer from extraordinarily dark undereye circles: I’m an insomniac, my diet suffers the perils of bad timing and low blood sugar, and hey– dark circles are largely heritary and hormonal, anyway.  (Let’s blame science!)

I’ve tried everything out there, and if it’s clean and green, I’ve tried it twice.   I really DO love 100% Pure’s peach pigmented natural wand concealer (not available on their website, but on QVC):  I like the consistency of the product, ease of use, and edible ingredients. I carry it in my purse for touchups (a surprise blemish, a fixer for smeared mascara, etc).  But (for me) it’s simply not dense enough to battle the darkness that lies beneath…

To really achieve a flawless looking undereye–and by that I mean this: when the skin beneath the eye matches the skin above the eye (brow bone)–I prefer a two step product.   One pinky/peach step, and one yellow step.  Most makeup artists agree.  The pink cancels out the greenish or bluish aspects of your circles, and the yellow step warms the skin up, and brightens the undereye.  Combined, they are magical.

I found my new concealer a few months ago, while perusing the cosmetics section at Whole Foods.  A nice counter person asked if I needed help.  I told her I was deciding between the clean stick concealers of Gabriel or MyChelle.  She said, “You know, my favorite is Mineral Fusion.  It’s really thick.”

Now, some people don’t want to hear the word “thick” when it comes to makeup.  Some of you naturalists are no doubt wrinkling your noses at the prospect of smearing a heavy concealer anywhere but over a hole in your living room wall.   But to me, it was like hearing, “Circles, what circles?”

What raised a flag for me, (and the reason I have not written about this product sooner) is the company itself, Mineral Fusion.  A company backed by Whole Foods (who often sport an enormous display of the line, next to a teeny tiny display for the completely clean makeup line by Dr. Hauschka) Mineral Fusion is NOT  the poster child for organic, green makeup.

The lipglosses contain petrochemicals (polyethylene being the worst offender, scoring a 6-9 on Skin Deep’s toxicity guide: polyethylene is determined by the  “safe” for use on skin by the CIR, assuming a low skin absorbtion rate (despite studies that show tumors developing on the areas of application by both American and British medical journals), we STILL KNOW that everything on our lips we eat….that’s major absorption!  I’m going to say that WEARING Mineral Fusion’s lipgloss on your LIPS means you’re EATING polyethylene, a little, everyday.  Maybe it’s meant to be worn on the earlobes, instead.

And while Mineral Fusion products are paraben-free, who cares, if we’re going to be ingesting disgusting ingredients? (By the way, the company is a proud donor to the Pink United Breast Cancer Research Foundation)  So when the gentle counter person said “Mineral Fusion!”, I understandably hesitated.

Then I tried the creamy concealer duo in “cool”.  ACK!  It works like nothing else.

I asked to read the ingredients.  Argh.  Number seven (out of nineteen ingredients).  You guessed it.  Polyethylene.

WHY?? Why do they do it?  Is it possible that polyethylene is sooooo important that they can’t make a fantastic product without it?  Clearly, there are 18 other ingredients that make this product work.  Can’t we just leave that one out?  Or is it possible that they’re in cohoots with the polyethylene producers? Is this some kind of flouride rehash, waiting to be exposed?

I was miserable.  And yet, I had never looked so happy, nor so well rested.   I held a magnifying mirror up to my face, and even under the hideous glare of energy saving flourescent lighting, I was magnificent.  A flawed flawlessness.

I didn’t buy it.  I bought the heartily clean MyChelle concealer stick instead, which I wore dutifully for a week.  It’s fine, but it’s no match against the dark void which exists beneath my eyes.  I went back to my 100% Pure, sniffling with resentment and heartache (nothing was good enough anymore).  Then I stopped wearing concealer altogether.

That’s right.  The girl whose mantra has always been “Concealer makes you look happy” was willingly going about looking like a sucidal heroin addict.  Finally, seeing my sad circles in the mirror day after day caught up with me, and I genuinely began to feel sad.

So I bought it.  I’ve been wearing Mineral Fusion’s concealer duo for two weeks.  I look like a new person.  I look younger, happier, healthier.   Ironic, isn’t it?

How does this all relate to my previous blog about “being Beautiful” (capital B) and “acting Beautifully”?  I’m not sure.  There’s a balance to be struck, I suppose, between finding the products that make us feel beautiful, and finding companies who are willing to act beautifully, themselves.

I have conceded this round to Big Industry, but as soon as someone develops the same product without using polyethylene, I will drop Mineral Fusion like a bad habit.  Which is, for now, what it is.

eyepatch image courtesy of Flickr’s  eye-patch