Do You Watch Royal Pains?

Eric and I do.  In fact, we watched tonight.  In this episode, a theater company is putting on a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, my favorite Shakespeare comedy, in the Hamptons.

Evan makes the theater mistake of wishing his fiancee "good luck" and then repeatedly saying "Macbeth" in the theater.  For those of you who don't know, these are both bad ideas.  Really bad.  In fact, saying "Macbeth" in a theater, according to the superstitious, is a great way to have absolutely everything in a performance go wrong.

Of course, things start to go wrong, from a hyperventillating actress to an actor with different breathing issues.

During rehearsal, the Lysander has "faerie dust" sprinkled over his eyes... and it ends up in his eyes.  Guess what's being used as faerie dust.  No really, guess.  Glitter.  Craft glitter.  Guess the result.  Hospitalization due to a foreign body in the eye, together with the threat of having to forge on with an eyepatch.

Yeah.  That, my friends, is why we don't use craft glitter on the face.  That is why we use cosmetic glitter in face painting.

Always ask!

Picnic!

Every summer, the community theater to which I belong, Bergen County Players, hosts a picnic for the members, friends, and family, and every year Eric and I go.  Since it's something I can offer to my fellow theater people, I bring the face paints and glitter tats.

I'm generally a hit.  This year didn't get off to an auspicious start, though, when I asked a little girl I didn't know if she wanted to be painted.  She said yes, her mother said yes.  She wanted a butterfly, and pink was her color of choice... but as soon as the sponge reached her face, she got really upset.  Glitter, which she'd already asked for before I started, just added to her misery.  Looking in the mirror was even worse, and she didn't stop crying until we washed her face off.  I'm glad Snazaroo, which I was using, will come off with just a paper towel and a little water.  I felt so bad!  Face painting's supposed to be fun, after all.

When her mom tried getting painted to show her it was ok, she got upset all over again... and then again when her brother got a glitter tattoo on each arm.  She's very protective of her family, it seems.

After that, though, hilarity ensued.

First, what I did.

What you're seeing there are my first ever beagle and squirrel!  I love getting challenges!  The fish was just something out of my head, an "artist's choice," but Eric told me I'd done a pineapple fish.  Behold...

Weird, right?  I'd never heard of or seen this fish before!  Hmm...

While I was working, though, my young friend Messalina (isn't that a great name?) asked to use my paints and join me.  I never let anyone do that, but it is tradition that Messalina paints me, so I let her paint our friend Kenny, who was oddly agreeable yesterday.  I do note that he's never let me paint him and plan to remedy that, especially since he has such a terrific canvas.

I think I should hire her!

A Happy 4th!

I painted on Monday at the Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, at their annual party.  It was a great bunch of kids, and we had fun.  This year, Angry Birds were the most popular face by far, a fad begun by this young lady, with my first ever Angry Bird face painting.


 Of course, butterflies.

A dragon.

A patriotic kiddo.

An evil clown.

And a bunch more firsts... a rocket and a smilie.

An owl that I wish was a better photo.

And a cute porcupine!

Washing My Kit

Between each face painting gig, I bring my kit(s) into the house and wash each brush and sponge that I've used.  I'm sure you find this to be good news, right?

Now, as a fine artist, I'd been taught to use Ivory soap to wash my brushes when oil painting.  It makes sense as a nearly-pure soap that cuts through the oils really well.  So when I started face painting, it made sense to me to do the same with my face painting brushes.  Granted, face paints are really makup and not paint at all, and they're therefore not oily, but they are highly pigmented and can stain sponges and brushes something fierce.

I stopped that.  I've started using Purity pure Castile soap instead.  Yes, I make it myself.  When my husband and I started our soap business, Reef Botanicals, I posted it here.  Well, now it's flourishing!

Not long ago, Mark Reid espoused the virtues of cleaning his sponges and brushes in a pure Castile soap.  He bought some Purity and raved about its success.  Since then, other face painters have followed suit.

This is what Ashley Pickin had to say about it:

OMG it cleaned my brushes and sponges SO WELL!  Brushes that had been black with Wolfe black for like months came back to a light shade of gray... I couldn't believe it.  I had used all kinds of other stuff on them and they never came that clean!  My golden taklon ones turned back to their golden color! Amazing! ... STRONGLY recommend trying that stuff.  It's awesome!

And today, I heard from my friend Cindy, who tested Purity on her face painting sponges last night (and bought a new camera):

First, she hand-washed face painting sponges in a lingerie bag in an unscented liquid hand soap, and got these results:

She pointed out the overall pink tinges of the lighter-colored sponges, which were originally a very light peach, and the pink stains on the formerly white lingerie bag.  She'd spent "a good five minutes squishing, squeezing, resoaping, rinsing and rerinsing these sponges."  They were washed until the water ran clear with the last application of soap, which meant three rounds of soap.

Then, she tested dishwashing liquid, and got this:

They're better and brighter, but the bag is still stained and there's still a good amount of face paint staining the sponges.  She had again washed and rinsed until the water ran clear, which took two applications of the dishwashing liquid.

And then she tried again, with Purity Castile soap, and got this:

It took two rounds of soap and they're still a bit stained, but the sponges themselves have returned to their original pale peach color!  They are bright and not nearly so embarrassing for a face painter to pull out of her kit.  And did you notice...?  No stains on the lingerie bag!

Even better, since you know that Purity is safe for use on the face, if there's any residue on the sponges or brushes, it won't hurt anyone if transferred to a face during face painting.  There are no allergens here, since it's completely color-, fragrance-, and additive-free!

This would work for any cleanup, though.  Even though face paint is really makeup and not paint, this would work just as well for oils, acrylics, watercolors... after all, in my many years of art classes I was taught to wash my oil paint brushes with a bar of Ivory.  What could be better than that?  Purity!

A Win for Face Paint!

Kryolan Professional Make-Up, a quality face paint and theater makeup company out of Germany, is now the first producer of a range of color makeup products to receive the Seal of Quality Approval from the European Centre for Allergy Research Foundation.

With the increase of the prevalance of allergies in industrialized countries, the European Centre for Allergy Research Foundation is working to raise the level of awareness ?poiyhdsxfgbjkl;]
\[-53q and research into allergies and relief therefrom.

The Foundation awards the Seal of Quality Approval for allergy-friendly products if the products have been shown to relieve and/or better the daily lives of allergy patients. Cosmetic products can receive this honor if they have been proven in laboratory and clinical tests to be especially well-suited for sensitive skin and patients with neurodermatitis.

Several Kryolan products, including their Aquacolor face paint line, were tested, and all received findings of "good" or "very good" with skin proving to be unchanged or improved after use.

For more details, look here.

Please do not confuse Kryolan makeup with Krylon, the company that makes industrial and spray paints. They are two very different things!

Tips When Hiring a Face Painter

I've just read an article by Anders Eriksson, located here.

I don't know Anders Eriksson, but he makes some very good points I thought I should highlight for my readers.

If you can, know your face painter before hiring him or her for a party.

You do want someone who's good with kids, who can interact with them well, and who is neither bouncing off your walls nor standoffish. You want someone fun, but who can cotnrol the line and insist upon maintaining a "polite zone."

You want someone who's using the proper products; not just FDA-compliant face paints, but also glitters and shimmers. You want someone who is concerned for the safety of your child and your guests. Always ask!

And you want to see samples of your face painter's work. Unfortunately, there are an uncrupulous few who lift the photos of others' work off the Internet and advertise them as their own work. Most painters who are willing to misrepresent their work in this way can't live up to their promises; they don't deliver the work the advertise. Again, always ask! It's worth it!

The Truth About Face Paint Safety: A Follow Up

I've received some new pieces of information regarding face paint safety.

The first is the most recent MSDS sheet (dated 2008), from Snazaroo UK, the company that makes Snazaroo face painting products. It's located here.

The second is a statement released by Ben Nye Company. Ben Nye is a professional theater makeup company whose products were "tested" by the CSC. Here's what they have to say:

Ben Nye Makeup has been committed to the highest standards of product quality and safety for over 42 years. We adhere to responsible manufacturing procedures to meet the rigorous safety standards set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Several reputable organizations and experts have issued opinions regarding lead in cosmetics. As the CTFA states below, lead is unavoidable. It is present in our environment, in foods that we eat and even in water that we drink. There is no conclusive evidence to confirm how much lead is actually absorbed through contact with cosmetics. Further, there is not one single recorded case in U.S. medical literature substantiating lead poisoning through cosmetic use (SNOPES, NOVEMBER 2008).

CTFA Statement regarding Lead and Cosmetics (from the CTFA Website):

It is impossible to live in a lead-free world. Lead is ubiquitous in the environment. It is in the air, water, soil, in short, it is unavoidable. However, compared to the amount of lead a person would ingest from eating and drinking ordinary foods, the amount expected from the use of cosmetics would be extremely small.

Under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the responsibility to take action if it finds a product to be unsafe and has abundant legal authority to do so.

Cosmetics are safe products that millions of consumers use and enjoy every day. It is alarmist and irresponsible to suggest otherwise.

Below are links to websites with useful information that specifically address and invalidate the concern that lead content in responsibly manufactured cosmetics are at hazardous levels.

cosmeticsinfo.org
U.S. Food & Drug Administration

In addition to the statements from the face paint companies the Chief Scientist of an independent group, the Personal Care Products Council has the following to say, in part:

... parents can enjoy Halloween festivities with their children without unnecessary worry about the safety of these novelty products.

Although CSC is recommending to parents that they should mix up their own children's face paints, parents should note that since heavy metals are ubiquitous in food, water, air and other consumer products, there is no guarantee that homemade face paints are safer or as safe as those that may be purchased in stores.

You can read the full text of his statement, which has even more information, here.

Face Paint Safety

You may have seen an article published by an alarmist activist group, "The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics," which has been cited at MSN Health & Fitness and even on NBC-2 News in Chicago. If you have seen this article, I'm sure it's raised questions for you, as well it should. It certainly raised questions for the face and body art community!

Well, we're lucky. Snazaroo, one of the leaders in face paint production and the mainstay of my own body art kit, and one of the companies named by CSC, is produced in the U.K. but distributed in the United States by Gary Cole, owner of Snazaroo U.S.A, Inc. Mr. Cole, a face painter, body art instructor, and competition judge himself, who has had many years in the cosmetics industry before his ownership of Snazaroo U.S.A., Inc., makes himself accessible to body artists around the world and to the public itself via his Snazaroo-hosted Google discussion group, FacePaintHQ.

When we as body artists got wind of this alarmist article, we went right to the source, and questioned Mr. Cole.

Mr. Cole notes that the group from which the article comes is "The Daily Green - The Consumer's Guide to the Green Revolution," a group that has a political and financial stake in producing work such as this.

That aside, however, he read the article, and had the following response, in pertinent part:

Snazaroo offers you "The World's Safest and Easiest to Use Face Paint Brand." We still do. Our safety page ... goes well into the safety policies of Snazaroo.... If you go online ... you will find an MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) from Snazaroo in the UK. It is from testing of the face paints sent out to an independent lab called SGS. In the report, you will see that Snazaroo face paints are fully compliant with the cosmetic laws of the E.U. and the U.S. FDA. This particular test was done in 1995.
...

You will also see that the metals levels are WELL BELOW the FDA requirements and found acceptable for use on the skin. In fact, the metals content reported could be sixty times its current level and still be within the cosmetic standards of the U.S.A. and E.U. It is safe as a cosmetic product.

One might scoff that none of these ingredients are listed in the formulation. Well they are not included as ingredients in Snazaroo and therefore not listed. So where do they come from? They come as trace ingredients in the other ingredients formally listed. Most of the metals are coming from two specific colored pigments, black iron oxide and yellow iron oxide. These are natural ingredients used widely in the cosmetic industry.
...

Because these come from natural ingredients, by nature, they have these minerals in very minor quantities.
...

In the Snazaroo MSDS, you will see that the metals content from these trace elements are also compliant with the ASTM F963-95 which is the Standard Consumer Safety Standard that is specific to meet the Child Toy Safety rating.

The bottom line here is ... Snazaroo has and still does lead the world in its quality and safety. No other brand can beat the safety of the Snazaroo brand. It remains the standard despite skeptics and their reports.

He also spoke to a news reporter from NBC news in Chicago, who responded to his email regarding her comments about this story. She said she spoke to an officer at the FDA with regard to cosmetics regulations and they confirmed that the metal levels in Snazaroo were WELL WITHIN THE LEGAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THE U.S. COSMETIC INDUSTRY. She confirmed that Mr. Cole's email was very consistent with what they received from the FDA. She agreed the “Daily Green” report was "a lot to say about nothing."

Snazaroo in the UK is also expected to issue a press release in response to the article in question, so expect a follow-up post from me detailing their statements.

For some of my other supplies, also cited in the article, you can find the Mehron MSDS here and the Wolfe FX MSDS here.

A fellow body artist had the following to say regarding the issue:

I am a scientist. Specifically, I am a physicist. I have taken many graduate classes in statistical analysis and can state that the sampling methodology [described in the article] is seriously deficient. This is not the first time I have seen poor analysis and sampling and it (unfortunately) will not be the last. I am grateful that some of us use common sense when considering reports like this. To say that the face paint contains lead is as informative as stating that it contains hydrogen and oxygen. So what?

Donna

If you reread the article by CSC, please note that the group's real gripe seems to be with the FDA. They're not actually claiming that the face paints in question don't meet FDA standards; they're claiming that the FDA doesn't go far enough to regulate the cosmetics industry as a whole. Well, you can take that up with the FDA if you like, but the bottom line, very simply, is that professional cosmetic-grade face paints are perfectly safe for use on you and your kids.