The Complete Handbook of Body Paint & Foundation

Chapter 1: Understanding Body Paint & Foundation

Body paint and foundation are what occur when pigment stops being a powder and becomes a film. A film is a thin, continuous layer of a material on a surface. In cosmetics, the surface is human skin, and the film must do two contradictory things: it must stick, and it must come off. Understanding any specific product is a matter of understanding its solution to that contradiction.

To understand body paint, it is useful to strip away the brand names and look at what is actually on the skin. Every product is a base, a pigment, and an additive package. The base is the carrier. It is what allows the pigment to spread. Common bases include water with glycerin or glycols, silicones like cyclopentasiloxane, waxes, and alcohol-based solvents. The pigment is the solid matter that provides the color. In this category, that is usually an iron oxide for earth tones, titanium dioxide for white, carbon black for dark shades, and a host of synthetic organic pigments for the bright colors needed in body art. The additives are everything else: binders that help the film form, plasticizers that keep the film from cracking, preservatives that prevent bacterial growth, and agents that affect the final feel, such as matting powders.

This three-part structure applies to a tiny pot of face paint for a child and a professional-grade airbrush foundation. The difference is not the fundamental ingredients; it is the distribution of them, the quality of