By Leslie Crawford

I love makeup. Not in a Tammy Faye kind of way; my style is more “a little-dab’ll-do-ya.” The only time my affection for it wavers is when my cosmetics make me break out like a pizza-faced teen—hardly the ideal way to achieve that youthful look. So when I heard about Jane Iredale, who helped pioneer a line of skin-saving cosmetics, my pores—and I—tingled with excitement.

As a former casting director who’d witnessed firsthand the effects of harsh cosmetics, Iredale saw a chance to create gentler products. “I thought, ‘Why can’t makeup be good for skin?” she says. The result was what she named mineral makeup because, as she says, “when we eliminated the things that we didn’t like in traditional formulas, we were left with pure minerals.”

If you haven’t yet heard much about mineral makeup—and Iredale’s is only one of several lines out there—you will soon. Since their creation about a decade ago, mineral cosmetics have largely been marketed as specialty items, sold almost exclusively at dermatologists’ offices, day spas, and salons. But lately, as interest in all things natural has grown, so has interest in these cosmetics. “Everybody’s getting on the mineral bandwagon,” says Kathleen M. Welsh, a dermatologist with a private practice in San Francisco. “The reason it’s gaining popularity is simple: It’s a superior product.”

The idea behind mineral cosmetics is so basic you wonder why no one thought of it before. Or did they? Cleopatra, that ageless paragon of beauty, applied the natural pigments found in clays and minerals hundreds of years before her great-great-great- (and so on) granddaughters depended on the likes of Maybelline and Revlon. And modern women might do well to think more like ancient Egyptians. As many with sensitive or allergy-prone complexions already know, traditional cosmetics, whether low-end drugstore varieties or high-end department-store lines, tend to be a melting pot of artificial dyes, fragrances, alcohol, preservatives, and oils, which can clog and irritate skin.

Mineral makeup, by contrast, is little more than a collection of powdered minerals, notably iron oxides. The fact that it’s basically dirt, albeit really good dirt, means that it’s easier on sensitive skin: Mineral dust is about as pure as it gets. It also means the stuff stays put, unlike liquid or cream makeups, which tend to vanish before day’s end. The active ingredients, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, also offer broad-spectrum sun protection with an SPF of up to 20. (Note: If you apply the mineral foundation lightly you may not get complete coverage, so dermatologists still recommend using a sunscreen underneath.) Another benefit is the quality of the colors. “Mineral pigment offers a strong, concentrated color that is much more vibrant than the chemicals and dyes used for color in regular makeup,” says Welsh.

What mineral makeup can’t do is nourish your skin the way liquid formulas can. The minerals won’t shrink pores, plum...

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