I tried making my own DIY make-up

DIY-makeup has been a thing for a while. Or at least, it is on the internet; it’s especially popular on clean-living and parenting blogs. It’s touted as being both cheaper than regular makeup (always a win) and healthier as there are “no nasties” or no dodgy chemicals.

As a student, I’m always down for something that will reduce the ~totally reasonable~ amount of money I spend on makeup, so I decided to give it a go. So I stopped in at Holland and Barratt to pick up a strange selection of things. And then I hit the baking section in a supermarket to grab the rest. Homemade foundation and cake seem to have a lot in common ingredients-wise, and I’m not sure yet if that’s good or bad. In total, it cost about £20 to buy everything I would need to make foundation, bronzer, blusher, eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara and lipstick. As someone who frequently spends more than that on a single lipstick, this is a promising, if unbelievably low, price.

FOUNDATION

Cornstarch, cinnamon, cocoa powder

It was almost impossible to find a non-powder foundation recipe online and as Holland and Barratt didn’t have shea butter, I went for a powder recipe. I mixed the ingredients together, whilst wondering how I was supposed to achieve anything near my skin tone using only browns and whites. I wouldn’t normally use powder foundation as it doesn’t give enough coverage. This is even more true of homemade foundation. I applied as much as would possibly stick to my face and honestly, except for the cakey-ness around my nose and eyebrows, you can’t even tell I’m wearing it. Because it’s so lightweight I did end up with a lot in my hair though. Interestingly, this foundation is actually identical to the DIY-dry shampoo I make. But unlike this foundation, the dry-shampoo recipe makes a noticeable and beneficial difference.

BRONZER

Cornstarch, cinnamon, cocoa powder, lavender essential oil

Before I tell you how this went, just take another look at the ingredients list and imagine how that’s going to smell. Because no matter how bad you are thinking right now, it’s a lot worse. What brilliant mind decided to mix lavender and cinnamon? Mixing this up was also a nightmare, because adding tiny amount of liquid to cornstarch is a real bitch to get to combine smoothly. Given that this is basically just foundation with an extra ingredient, I had zero hopes for this, and I was still disappointed.

BLUSHER

Cornstarch, beetroot powder

Okay, I couldn’t actually find beetroot powder, so I got concentrated beetroot juice. I tried to reduce it down, but that went horrendously, so I just used the liquid, which made mixing harder. But I got a reasonable product together to apply, and much like the last two, no matter how much you apply, it doesn’t really show.

EYESHADOW

Cornstarch, beetroot powder

Eyeshadow recipes varied greatly, but stayed largely in the browns family. I don’t really go for brown eyeshadow so I decided to go for a pink. Unfortunately, as I was still using beetroot juice, I ended up with a damp sand kind of texture that felt so weird on my eyes that I removed it immediately. The colour wasn’t really sticking anyway.

EYELINER

Aloe vera gel, coconut oil, activated charcoal

I was most nervous about this one, because of the whole applying-weird-stuff-to-my-eyes thing. The ingredients for this one cost more than the ingredients for everything else doubled, which I didn’t love either. But I mixed it all up and grabbed an eyeliner brush. It didn’t work really. It came up as a thin, grey and slightly gritty streak. No matter how much I piled it on, it wouldn’t show up as black or solid. Resigned, I turned it into eyeshadow, thinking it could at least be a nice grey eyeshadow. It was a bit shit, but better than using it as a liner.

LIPSTICK

Coconut oil, beetroot juice

By this point, I had no hope left, but I mixed it up anyway. The colour in the bowl was bright and beautiful, but the blush had looked nice in the bowl too. But this one actually worked. I wouldn’t call it a lipstick, more a tinted lip balm. It gave a colour and effect that is almost identical to my Balance-me tinted lip balm. Which incidentally, is one of the few things that tastes worse than this lipstick (it’s fully edible, so I did have to taste it). The staying power was surprising too as this lasted a good few hours and a couple of coffees, which is better than my Kylie lip kit. By far, this was the best part of this experiment and the only vague success.

BONUS

I found myself left with a bunch of weird stuff, like activated charcoal, that I had no idea what to do with. I did a little Googling and found a recipe for a facemask using activated charcoal and aloe vera gel, so I mixed them together with some water (in roughly equal quantities) and applied. This feels so nice on your skin, probably because of the cooling effect of aloe. And it’s not a bad facemask either- it did a lot more for my skin that the Lush one I usually use. I will definitely be making this again, which is good, given I won’t be making any of the actual makeup again ever.

Basically, this was spectacularly crap and from now on, the more chemicals in my makeup the better. All I really did was smear cake ingredients on my face, and that’s somehow meant to be better than using carefully researched and formulated products specifically made for certain parts of the face? I don’t think so. Really, the only conclusions I can draw from this are:

• Don’t put food on your face.
• The amount of money I spend in MAC is 100 per cent justified.
• Just, don’t put food on your face