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Selecting the Right Foundation

Foundation is a cosmetic product, which are more searched by women. It can make you so different in look by providing a natural, flawless finish or make you look as if you are wearing a mask.

At present the foundation market is saturated with different types and brands of foundations. Any cosmetic section of stores will have a number of choices – liquid, cream, oil – free, powder, allergy tested, cake, stick, stay-on, hypo allergic, cream to powder, non-comedogenic, camouflage foundations etc. It is really a mind-blowing experience especially if you are buying it for the very first time. To make it simpler for you to select your foundation we have classified it into four major categories.

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Foundations

“Dress shabbily, they notice the dress. Dress impeccably, they notice you”. Coco Channel

When you enter a room, the people sitting there must notice you and not your makeup. If they notice your makeup that means it is “shabby”. If they notice you, that means your make up is perfect. This is what Sacha has made as their philosophy.

Makeup should be used to draw attention to your good features and hiding the less flattering ones.  When an artist paints his work, he first prime the canvas with a base color, which first of all removes any imperfection in the paper and provide a smooth surface to work. This primer should be a neutral color to bring out the color the artist intends to use. This neutral primer is normally white color. A makeup artist is also an artist and the “primer” he is using is the foundation. But in this case you can’t use a white “primer” as it will look like a mask.

Therefore the primer you choose should match with your natural skin tone. The “primer should have better coverage and neutral enough to highlight the makeup in your eyes, cheek and lips to express your natural beauty. The makeup artist faces the greatest challenge in finding the right foundation for you. The problems starts from the beginning itself as no foundation are discovered to perfectly match with our natural skin tones. The foundations ere first developed for the use of movie industry by the then cosmetic pioneers such as Max Factor. At that time “white light” was used, which made the actors and actresses look like “washed out”.

To apply color on the face the cosmetic manufacturers developed a foundation with red base. The cosmetic market was dominated by the “pink” foundation at that time and even today it forms the basis of many brands in cosmetic industry.

As time passed and with the further development of movie industry, natural light was introduced and foundation has also  changed with it as they found out that there is no need for “red” foundation. Then the manufacturers slowly changed by reducing the amount of red used in their formulae to obtain a better match with various skin tones.

However the foundation remained red for many years. Then the manufacturers started adding more yellow to their foundations to change the pink look. The “added yellow” however gives an attractive orange look to the foundation.  At this time the cosmetic manufacturers recognized that there is a great scope for African American cosmetics. They made use of the existing “red” formula, made it darker and thus foundation for their color was invented. While doing so they failed to consider that the darker women have yellow undertones and needed to wear foundations with a yellow base.

The renowned makeup artist, Kevyn Aucoin in his book “Making Faces” states that:
“Years ago, foundation was used specifically to alter the color of the skin, re: ‘rosy glow’. But the trend of the last few years has taken us from what intentionally changed the wearer’s natural coloring to products that match the tones perfectly”.

Afterwards he added:
“Still, if you choose to wear foundation, there are two important things to consider when selecting a product, the ‘look’ you want to achieve and that it matches your skin”.

We believe that foundation should be enough coverage to meet the individual’s personal requirement and should still
look natural. The foundation should exactly match with your color so that you should not end up with a “ring” around your face.

From our observation we have noticed that most of the Caucasian, African and all Asian and Latin women have yellow-based skin, Still most of the foundation they use are in red or orange tones.

If a woman with natural yellow undertones wears foundations with a pink or orange base, they may finally look unnatural.

Women with darker color often turn ashy and darker African women look one step darker than their natural color. Because of this only one “black” miss universe was selected in the history of the Pageant. For more than twenty years beautiful African participants of the competition would walk out on the stage, and they look ashy under the stage lights and thus loosing their chance to win the competition.

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Cosmetic Chemical ingredients causing Acne

This is the ingredient, which cause clogs on pores and which in turn can cause acne. Keep in mind that acne can be hereditary and can also be influenced by stress, hormonal fluctuations, medications and excessive exposure to sunlight.

Some women have been thinking that foundations could clog the pores. This is not simply right. At present the manufacturers have a number of ingredients that can substitute any ingredient that is suspected to be comedogenic or has the potential to clog the pores.

The following list of suspected ingredients is given here for your safety:
• Acetylated Lanolin
• Acetylated Lanolin Alcohol
• Algin
• Carrageenan
• Cetearyl Alcohol and Ceteareth 20
• Cocoa Butter
• Coconut Butter
• Coconut Oil
• Disodium Monooleamido PEG 2-
• Sulfosuccinate
• Ethylhexyl Palmitate
• Glyceryl-3-Diisosterate
• Hexadecyl Alcohol
• Isocetyl Stearate
• Isodecyl Oleate
• Isopropyl Isostearate
• Isopropyl Myristate
• Isopropyl Palmitate
• Isostearyl Isostearate
• Laureth
• Lauric Acid
• Myristyl Lactate
• Myristyl Myristate
• Octyl Palmitate
• Octyl Stearate
• Oleth-3
• Oleyl Alcohol
• PEG-16 Lanolin
• PG 2 Myristyl Propionate
• Polyglyceryl-3-Diisosteatate
• Potassium Chloride
• Propylene Glycol Monostearate
• Red Algae
• Sodium Chloride
• Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
• Sorbitan Sesquinoleate
• Soulan 16
• Steareth 10
• Stearyl Heptanonate
• Wheat Germ Oil
• Xylene