Zoral makeup

“Allow yourself to enjoy each happy moment in your life.”
Steve Maraboli

“Elegance comes from being as beautiful inside as outside.”
― Coco Chanel

Makeup is art. Beauty is spirit.

Makeup of Makeup: Decoding Blush

Blush, which has been around since at least 3000 BC and now comes in powder, cream, gel, and liquid, adds color to your cheeks, giving you a rosy glow.

How to Apply Blush

"Perfect blush application is all about placement," says Raychel Wade, New York makeup artist and "colour ambassador" for La Prairie.

"Ideally you want the burst of color to be right on the apples of your cheeks. A foolproof way to find this is to nestle the brush directly under your eye pupil and across from the tip of your nose. Then blend up and out 2 inches."

Long-Lasting Blush

Looking for a blush that will last from breakfast to after-dinner drinks? Choose a cream, liquid, or gel. Because these formulations contain water or oils, they form a film on your skin and wear longer.

But once the product dries on the skin, which can be seconds in the case of liquid cheek stain, it’s nearly impossible to blend. Powders offer the most goof-proof application.

Blush Shelf Life

If your blush looks a little muddy, it's probably time to replace it. Cosmetic companies test blush to remain stable for about a year once opened.

"After that, the red pigment may start to break down, so your blush will go on more brown," says Perry Romanowski, MS, a Chicago cosmetic chemist. "It also won’t spread as easily, so you may end up with streaks."

What's in Blush?

Blush is made from FDA-approved colorants or dyes. These pigments appear on the label as a color and number, such as Red 33, Yellow 5, or Red Lake 6.

Typically, three or four pigments are mixed to make a single shade of blush. "Fewer than 100 colorants are approved by the FDA, but these can be blended in an infinite number of ways, which is how cosmetic companies are able to introduce new shades every season," Romanowski says.

By themselves, these colorants are so concentrated they’d show up as intensely vivid dots on your skin. Chemists add fillers, such as talc and stearic acid, a natural fatty acid, to dilute the pigment. Coverage or concealing pigments, including mica, zinc oxide, and titanium oxide, are also added to the mix.

"These ingredients block your natural skin color," Romanowski says, "so the blush color you apply will be bright and true."

History of Makeup

From the copper and lead ore that the ancient Egyptians used to create the world's first cosmetics to the scientifically advanced products of today that can do everything from hide pores, smooth complexions, and turn the pale green of your eyes a vivid shade of emerald, makeup has been an integral part of humankind for thousands of years. Over the centuries, women used burnt matches to darken their eyes, berries to stain their lips and young boys' urine to fade their freckles. They even swallowed ox blood in some misguided attempt to improve their complexions.

Women throughout history put their health at risk with many of their homemade cosmetics. In some cultures, for example, women used arsenic, lead, mercury, and even leeches to give themselves the pale appearance deemed beautiful in the old days. Thankfully, we've come a long way from the days of using toxic and deadly mixtures to enhance our looks.

Today's multibillion dollar cosmetic industry must meet strict government regulations about what it can and cannot include in products and must follow safe manufacturing guidelines. Today, the most serious injury you're likely to receive from your cosmetics is an irritation from a product that is too harsh for your skin, or an allergic rash from a fragrance or a preservative in the product. Yet, despite decades of safety testing and a safety record unparalleled in many industries, there are many myths circulating about the dangers of cosmetic ingredients.