One of the best things about formulating your own skincare and cosmetics is formulating products your way – in alignment with your values, ideals and preferences.
The exciting news is the same is true with makeup and color cosmetics! With the right know-how you can create vegan mascara, organic blusher and natural foundation.
You can even create a makeup range that is natural, organic and vegan!
If you are keen on the waterless beauty movement, then you’ll be pleased to know that many natural cosmetics are waterless, too. Fair trade is also an option; fairly traded oils, butters and waxes can form the cornerstone of your cosmetics, if you wish.
We love to empower our students to create products in alignment with their values and our online Diploma in Formulating Natural Makeup and Advanced Color Cosmetics enables them to do just that.
Choosing natural, organic and/or vegan ingredients
The ingredients you use will determine if your product is natural, organic and/or vegan.
Global standards such as COSMOS lead the way in defining which ingredients are acceptable in natural and organic cosmetics. Even if you don’t become certified by them, you can follow their guidelines to ensure you are formulating to the strictest natural/organic standards. When deciding on the ingredients for our courses, we use the COSMOS standards as a guide.
For an ingredient to comply with these standards, it must be naturally derived (so no oil-derived/petrochemical-derived ingredients are allowed), biodegradable, and created with a production process that only permits certain specific chemical and physical modifications. COSMOS permits the use of certain synthetic ingredients in small amounts, mainly used as preservatives.
COSMOS-approved colorants
A key part of any makeup formulation is the colorants used. COSMOS approves mineral pigments for use in certified natural and organic makeup and color cosmetics. Mineral pigments are easy to work with, very stable and produce reliable results in a wide variety of shades. All of the certified natural makeup brands use mineral pigments in their products.
In our Diploma in Formulating Natural Makeup and Advanced Color Cosmetics we show you how to work with mineral pigments. They are the perfect choice for professional looking, natural color cosmetics. You can read more about mineral pigments in Pigments Used in Color Cosmetics: Mineral vs Botanical.
Formulating vegan makeup and color cosmetics
Vegan products are products that are not tested on animals, and that don’t contain any animal-derived ingredients. This means that, barring a few exceptions, vegan products are typically cruelty-free, and can be considered as highly ethical.
Popular vegan and cruelty-free color cosmetic brands include E.L.F cosmetics, KVD Vegan Beauty and Bite Beauty.
Fortunately, it is perfectly possible to avoid all animal-derived ingredients in your makeup products.
To formulate vegan makeup products you’ll need to avoid using beeswax, which is easy to do as there are many excellent plant-derived waxes to choose from including candelilla wax, berry wax and carnauba wax.
Carmine/cochineal is a red pigment derived from crushed female cochineal insects. A vegan (and natural) alternative to carmine is red iron oxide – it has a more earthy-dark hue.
It is worth noting that in relation to cosmetics, the term ‘vegan’ doesn’t necessarily mean natural. A synthetic product can be vegan, too. We have discussed this in detail in Vegan Doesn’t Mean Natural: Embracing Natural Vegan Skincare.
The wonderful thing about formulating your own makeup is you are in control of the ingredients, so you can choose to make products that are both natural and vegan.
If you’re interested in learning more about certifications available for vegan and cruelty-free products, you can check out Vegan Society (UK), Vegan (US), Leaping Bunny and Choose Cruelty Free.
Formulating natural makeup and color cosmetics
Conventional color cosmetics contain petroleum-derived and synthetic ingredients, for example silicones like dimethicone, and petroleum derivatives like paraffin wax and mineral oil.
On the other hand, natural cosmetics use ingredients of natural origin – derived from plants, animals, minerals or marine sources. For an ingredient to comply with the COSMOS standards, it must be naturally derived (so no oil-derived/petrochemical-derived ingredients are allowed), biodegradable, and created with a production process that only permits certain specific chemical and physical modifications.
Luckily, there are so many wonderful natural ingredients that can be used in makeup products – oils, butters, waxes, powders, essential oils, humectants and more. Even the more functional ingredients like emulsifiers, thickeners and stabilizers are naturally derived, and where preservatives are concerned, nature identical and COSMOS-approved preservatives can be used.
Formulating organic makeup and color cosmetics
To formulate your own organic color cosmetics and makeup, you can choose to use organic ingredients such as organic oils, butters and waxes.
By using organic ingredients you can be sure you are supporting production methods that protect and preserve the environment. The word ‘organic’ in the context of farming describes a method of farming and food production that prohibits the use of synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, and genetically modified organisms (GM).
Cosmetic products that contain naturally derived ingredients which were produced using organic farming can be certified organic.
Raw materials can be certified as organic and finished cosmetic products can also be certified as organic. Organic standards for cosmetics are provided by a number of different organizations including COSMOS and NATRUE in Europe, USDA Organic in the USA, and Australian Certified Organic.
Empowering you to formulate your way!
Whatever you value most, you can learn to formulate makeup and color cosmetics your way on our online Diploma in Formulating Natural Makeup and Advanced Color Cosmetics.
From vegan mascara, to natural mineral makeup and organic lipstick, we have it all covered! Our Diploma in Formulating Natural Makeup and Advanced Color Cosmetics is the first course of its kind to focus solely on natural, organic and vegan makeup and color cosmetic formulation.
We are so excited to welcome you!
