I've never been a girlie girl -- I am no Carrie Bradshaw. I do not melt at the sight of shoes, bags, clothes, accessories... not me.

Then I got LASIK. Without glasses to limit me, in one impulsive moment, I tried on false eyelashes... and I never looked back. Make up is now my Achilles heel. It started with a very very brief stint with ELF, which I'm not bothering to review because its nothing to rave about. Yes, its cheap, but you really still get what you pay for. I wouldn't even recommend it as starter make up -- instead, if you're going to start experimenting, start right.

Which brings me to my latest pet topic: MINERAL MAKE UP.

There's tonnes out there and most companies are run by a one-woman-multi-tasking-show. Kudos to these women and their determination. I've only ever tried 3 brand names: Everyday Minerals (EM), Bare Minerals (BM) and Silk Naturals (SN).

For me, Silk Naturals wins hands down for customer service, community support (their forum is a thriving and vibrant gaggle of friendly, helpful people who swatch, review and dispense practical advice) and value for money. Its very obvious that owner, Karen Stark, loves what she does and takes her clients' feedback seriously. I love her dupes (clones) of branded make up. Not simply because its a cheaper alternative, but because its really much healthier (organic, paraben free!).

The caveat is that SN products aren't exactly "cheap". If you compare Everyday Minerals' eyeshadow sample packs (10 pots for USD17) with SN's USD3.75/pot, its very tempting to stay with EM. So I'm not ruling out EM for eyeshadows and their Ultimate Super Saver pack which averages to USD4.17 per item (12 for the USD50).

However, both have their own unique colors so I would say, buy whichever colors you like. You could try to find a clone of SN's colors on EM, but I doubt you'll find an exact match. The saving grace is that both brands of mineral eye shadows are very pigmented. A little goes a long way, so even at USD3.75, I don't feel the pinch. Especially when SN's eye shadows have such a luxuriously smooth texture.

So here are my favourites from SN and EM:

Everyday Minerals
- Flat-top brush
- Long-handled Kabuki Brush
- Eye Shadow Sample pack (10 for USD17) They've stopped selling this sample kit. In its place is a 6 mini-sized items for USD18 kit. With only 95cents difference between Everyday Minerals eyeshadow and Silk Naturals eyeshadow, I would recommend the Silk Naturals ones.
- Super Saver Pack (12 Large sized items for USD50) ... I used this to buy their brushes which are originally priced at USD10 each.

Silk Naturals
- foundation
- oil control blur finishing powder
- lip glosses (Aria is MLBB)
- eye shadow primer
- Ultimate eye shadow brush
- Sleep in a Jar concealer
- Stippling brush

I'm not going to bother with Bare Minerals. At USD25 per jar of foundation, Bare Minerals is just so over-priced that the only way I managed to test it out was because a friend of mine received a Starter Pack as a gift. After trying SN's foundation, I just didn't see what the fuss about BM was.

SN's foundation is custom blended, and the added silk makes application so smooth. The powder stays on your face instead of fluffing into the air. And unlike BM's formulation, SN's foundation contains no Bismuth Oxychloride -- which the Environmental Working Group has advised all mineral make up users to avoid.

Click here for an interesting discussion between a mineral make up developer & bismuth oxychloride supplier on what is bismuth oxychloride & how safe is it?

My friend who owned the BM Starter Pack has since settled on an even cheaper alternative -- Everyday Minerals. She thinks it will be too much trouble to custom blending so she found a close match with Everyday Minerals.

My SN foundation formulation is 1 scoop Warm Gold + 1 scoop Ebony + 5 scoops Heavy Ivory. It took me 3 experimental batches to finally get it right and each batch only takes me a minute to shake up.

The best testimony for SN's mineral foundation comes from a guy friend of mine. I mixed up a batch of foundation, custom blended for his acne-prone skin. Not only did it make his face look poreless, it also evened out the texture from all those acne scars. It also eliminated the redness from the pimples. The best thing is that no one knows he's got foundation on. His masculinity remains intact in the eyes of his other "macho" friends.

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