When Old Man Winter rolls in and my skin starts impersonating the Sahara, I ditch that dry, flaky foundation for something a bit more... indulgent. Introducing my recipe for a foundation stick as creamy as your grandma's mashed potatoes. This little gem will make your skin feel like it's lounging in a luxurious cashmere sweater, all while looking flawless!
For the liquid oils you will need:
1.5 grams sweet almond oil
3.5 grams Triglyceride (you can use fractionated coconut oil too)
1.5 grams Squalane
Pour these three ingredients into a small glass beaker.
For the waxes and thickeners you will need:
0.6 grams Stearic Acid
0.3 grams Carnauba Wax
0.3 grams Sunflower Wax
0.45 grams Cera Bellina (you can use beeswax if you like)
Add these ingredients into the beaker with the other ingredients.
Start a simmering water bath with a few inches of water.
Allow the waxes and oils to fully melt together. Turn heat to low while you make the color grind.
You will most likely need yellow, black, red (red shade) and red (blue shade) iron oxides. You also need some filler powders too. You will need to wear a dust mask.
Start with.......
1.5 grams titanium dioxide
1.8 grams Sericite Mica
2 grams Silica Microspheres
Add these three ingredients into your makeup only coffee bean grinder.
Give it a few pulses to mix together.
Now comes the tricky part!!! Start with about 0.2 grams of yellow iron oxide. Write down all the weights as you go along. You will probably add additional little bits of iron oxides to color match your skin. I like to make it a shade darker as it will lighten a bit when you mix it into the oils/waxes.
My initial formula was......
0.2 grams yellow oxide
0.05 grams red (red shade) oxide
0.06 grams red (blue shade) oxide
0.01 grams black oxide
I added these to the coffee grinder and turned it on for about 30 seconds.
This is what I ended up with. I added an additional 0.5 grams of yellow oxide and blended it again for about 30 seconds.
Add tiny amounts of the iron oxides until you are happy with the shade. Be very careful with the black as it does not take very much at all.
Time to add the pigment grind to the melted liquid/wax. I keep my beaker in the hot water and add in the powders. Using a spatula, mix the ingredients together until you do not notice any lumps or color streaking.
I use one of the jumbo lip balm containers and simply fill it with the warm foundation. You can simply roll up the bottom until it brings the foundation to the top. Smooth the top with your spatula and place the cap on. Allow to cool to room temp.
The foundation appears darker than it really is in the above photo. It firms up nicely.
Here it is swatched on my arm in natural sun light. It is about a shade and a half darker than I normally wear. Thinking about what I would have done differently, I would have only added the red shade of the iron oxide and skipped the blue shade. I would have reduced the red shade to only 0.04 grams. Luckily this shade did blend out nicely and gave me a warm glow.
Here it is blended out. I really like the warm tone it gives me. Thankfully not a total waste! Here is the thing, even if it would have turned out way too dark for foundation, I could have totally used it as contour or bronzing.
This is the kind of real-life thing that happens when you make DIY cosmetics. Sometimes it ends up being a shade too dark or light. You can always give it away to a special someone that it will color match exactly.
Happy cosmetic crafting!!!
Shannon
