With mineral makeup quickly becoming the trend du jour, one line stays true to its pure roots. Bare Escentuals, which encompasses Bare Escentuals, i.d. Bare Minerals, Rare Minerals, and MD Formulations, is 100% pure minerals and in a category all its own.
Staci Wilson, Senior Vice President of Brand Development and Brand Awareness for Bare Escentuals, sings the praises of mineral makeup, ensuring that it is not a trend but here to stay.
"Bare Escentuals is really classified in its own category," comments Wilson. "We stay focused on connecting with customers, making sure they know that we're a pure mineral makeup line and we wouldn't ever add any fillers' to put on your face. That's just not for makeup!"
With lots of "mineral makeup" on the market, Wilson encourages consumers to check out the ingredient deck to see just what they are putting on their face.
"Not every other brand has just minerals," explains Wilson. "Take a look at the ingredients in most so called mineral makeup and you will see talcs and preservatives these aren't minerals! Also, some companies try to pass off liquid makeup as liquid mineral makeup but that doesn't stay true to the natural form of the minerals. To liquefy them, you have to add additives. On the flips-side, some companies try to crumble their products to make them appear more mineral-like when in fact they are simply just crumbled makeup."
With products that can be used as eyeshadows, blush, all-over face color and lip gloss all-in-one, Bare Escentuals has the market cornered on multi-tasking products.
In fact, one of their products, i.d. bareMinerals Multi-Tasking Minerals, is an eyeshadow base to keep your shadow in place, as well as a concealer for your face to cover dark circles and skin imperfections. While Natural Light Face Lifting Duo gives you a little shimmer where you need it to contour your face and reflect light away from dark areas.
What really counts? With the new restrictions about what can and cannot be brought aboard airplanes, Bare Escentuals mineral makeup makes it through without a snafu since each container weighs in under an ounce and you can fit all you need into the approved quart-size, clear zip-top plastic baggy. That's piece of mind right there!
The myriad of colors available are a result of simply blending various minerals. "Just look at the variations that you can see in rocks there is such a broad spectrum of naturally occurring colors." If you ever had troubled matching your skin tone for foundation, check out the numerous colors which can also be mixed together to create the perfect shade for your skin.
Every company has to grow. From the infomercials and boutiques, Bare Escentuals has set out to create innovative new products that every beauty addict can admire and desire.
"Leslie [Blodgett CEO] is a creative genius!" exclaims Wilson. "She wants to do everything that the cosmetics market isn't doing, as she has been doing with mineral makeup. We have a lot of hands in the artistry, always just looking for the next thing that makeup can bring. Playing with light is something really innovative, too. The luminosity of the product can be buffed right into your skin to bring a natural radiance."
One of the newest, and most innovative, Bare Escentuals products is Rare Minerals. Available in Clear, Light, Medium and Tan, Rare Minerals (Sephora, $60) promises to perfect your skin while you sleep, helping you wake up (and thanks to the light coverage, go to sleep) beautifully.
Discovered when consumers were writing into Leslie about accidentally (or purposely) sleeping in their makeup (hence the tagline "Makeup so pure you can sleep in it") and waking up with skin that looked even better, Leslie set off to conquer the skincare market with a creative approach.
An organic farmer also approached Leslie with a concentrate that he felt would strengthen Bare Escentuals. Leslie didn't want to alter the day makeup, so she decided to tackle a nighttime coverage that perfects your skin with active ingredients and the ability to exfoliate without chemicals staying true to natural makeup, while also having a nighttime treatment without goopy creams, waxes and oils.
"It was really a win-win situation since hydrating your skin can also exfoliate it"
But with every new product, comes some scrutiny. Recently, some people (including dermatologists) voiced their opinions on the new Rare Minerals nighttime treatment.
Wilson explains that the statements were simply uneducated statement because Bare Escentuals never said that the minerals will absorb into your skin, but simply said that they improve skin.
"A lot of dermatologists want to prescribe something if you don't have perfect skin and prescriptions just aren't natural," comments Wilson. "It is as much about what is NOT in our makeup as what IS in it. Rare Minerals contains a concentrate that exfoliates your skin 35 times faster than nothing on skin. Consequently, this is the same rate as glycolic treatments, but Rare Minerals is completely natural.
Beyond new products are what really matters giving back to a community that has helped Bare Escentuals grow into what they are today. A new shade of eyeshadow, "Loli Glimmer," was created by Sesser, IL native Lori Chamness as part of winning bid on eBay to support Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW) Foundation Cancer and Careers Project.
Another fund-raising product is Pink Passion (a shimmery-pink all over color with brush and coordinating lip gloss) that benefits the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Future fund-raising events include nominating the charity you want to receive the proceeds.
After recently going public, you can expect a lot of new things to be in store for Bare Escentuals without wandering from their natural and consumer-based approach that has made them so popular over the years.
Look for Leslie to come to your town on a beauty bus tour across America. "It's going to be a big rock star bus with six destinations.