Got in some new supplies (ordered from TKB Trading — lowest prices I found, good basic info about each product and plenty of selections). The main portion of the order was to obtain titanium dioxide and some different mica. Both were coated with methicone, which supposedly makes them completely non-irritating. I also ordered boron nitride, something that is used in high end make-up and supposedly gives a nice finish. I tried all three of these white powders on my skin without any color added and none of them bothered my skin. I couldn’t tell much difference between the sheen of the mica and the boron other than the boron is a whiter powder (the mica has a slight greyish tinge.) Both are quite reflective, which is supposed to hide fine lines.

New oxide colors:

red oxide
red/blue oxide

The red oxide is…rather orange looking to my eye. I mixed the red, the red/blue, the yellow, the tan and the brown with some Suave Oatmeal cream. This turns it into a concealer, while whitening it at the same time. Obviously as is, they are too dark and also too red, yellow or whatever. What I wanted to do was see how the colors looked on my skin, even too dark. The closest matches appeared to be the red/blue or the brown.

I started mixing in yellow with that in mind, but eventually, because the red/blue was a bit purple and the brown a bit pink, I started over with the yellow–and added the red/blue. Either way, I got to the same place, the difference is that I needed more yellow–so starting with red/blue created a rather huge pile of pigment by the time I added enough yellow. The larger the pile, the harder it is to get the lumps out and get even distribution of color. Start very small. Mix between each ingredient. Don’t use more than 1/8 of a tsp of your main color (in my case yellow). Then add a pinch of secondary colors (in my case the red/blue).

The titanium dioxide is rather lumpy, and I experienced no real difference with the titanium coated mica versus the methicone coated titanium dioxide. Both are very creamy, somewhat difficult to mix and impart a sheen.

The mica coated with methicone was nice, a bit less gray than plain mica. Relatively easy to mix, adds creaminess and sheen.

The boron nitride is a nice sheen, a very nice white. Again, other than whiteness, I really couldn’t tell much difference between it and the mica. It may have adhered slightly more to my skin. It was almost twice as expensive.

In the following recipe, the sheen factor was too high for me. The makeup brushes on fairly well, but is sticky. The end result is that it looks like I used a liquid foundation. I was utterly amazed at this, because everything is a powder, but when you sweep it on with a brush–it looks liquid. I used a 1/4 tsp as the measurement tool.

1/2 yellow
pinch of red/blue (not even 1/16 tsp)

2 titanium dioxide (methicone coated)
1/2 mica (methicone coated)

I tried half with some boron nitride and half without. It adds sheen, but the formula doesn’t need it.

I thought the spreadability was too thick for what I wanted so I added:

2 rice powder

The rice powder helps the spreadability a lot and also takes away some of the sheen. For my next batch, I will probably put even less sheen by cutting back the titanium dioxide. The good news is that after wearing it an hour, the sheen backs off and the color stays on. There’s definitely some room to play there.

I have thus far spent about 45 dollars. I can still make several batches, but I must say that getting the color where I want it is hard. Off by just a pinch and suddenly I’m going back and forth with the yellow and the red/blue. I think the brown would have worked almost as well as the red/blue, by the way. The key is to use very, very little color.

The titanium dioxide was a wonderful whitening agent. I liked it, although it was hard to mix into the formula. Lots of patience required here. And do not tear a hole in the wax paper (wax paper was the best mixing surface I found.)

I liked the boron nitride and the mica, but I’d probably go with the mica because it was cheaper. The only real benefit to the boron nitrate was the whiter color, but you’re adding so little of it compared to the titanium dioxide and rice flour you’re not really adding much “white.” Add them last as they seem to have the least effect on the overall color.

It would be vastly easier to just buy samples from a vendor because getting to “beige” is very tough. Then getting the sheen versus powder/spread right is another challenge and I’m pretty sure I’m not where I want to be yet. Based on what I now know about ingredients, I’d probably start with one of these two:

Sterling Minerals This one was a little higher in price (around 24 before shipping) but it lets you choose your skin sensitivity. Bascially, they have worked very hard with customers to find formulas that work for even the most sensitive skin.

Affordable Mineral Makeup They use the least ingredients out there and had very reasonable prices. They have a forum and were great about answering my emailed questions. They run various contests for free merchandize: There’s one now that ends Sept 2: Here You’ll have to hurry to enter!

Time for an update on Project Cat. Scamp is doing quite well. She’s been dewormed via secretly inserting dewormer into a tuna treat. She is now appearing on a regular basis for food and is even taking her meals on the porch.

She scampers off at the least perceived threat which still includes any movement by the humans, a loud noise from the neighbor’s yard, too many things happening at once or just for the hell of it. She will allow the humans to sit quietly on the porch, but does scamper off now and then to test the humans to see if they will give chase. She will pretend to approach the humans, sit just a few feet out of reach and then scamper off even though no threat is posed. She still does not spend significant time in the yard. A very busy cat, she runs off to do errands right after she eats.

On at least two occasions now, she picked my cantaloupe for me and rolled them around the garden. You would think they were too big to be toys to such a small cat, but apparently she finds it great fun. I haven’t seen that she is the actual perpetrator of these crimes, but there are tiny claw marks on the evidence in question and even a rather healthy gouge that could be teeth marks or claws that got stuck while playing.

The goal is to catch her and have her fixed and then release her again. Once she has been fixed and defleaed, the problems are minimized. Of course, we’re quite a long ways from catching her, I think.

I posted my first two recipes here. I wasn’t in love with the tapioca starch so I decided to try a couple of variants.

This first one, for whiteners/blending, I used only the mica extender (mica coated with titanium dioxide) and the mica (mica has a very slight natural grey tone to it when next to tapioca starch or titanium dioxide). This changed the consistency of the mineral make-up to an amazing degree. It was much harder to mix–it was basically “sticker.” I found that the color mattered more also because there was more light reflection than when tapioca starch was used. Again, I used 1/4 tsp as the unit; any unit can be used as long as the ratios stay the same.

Here’s the recipe:

7 extender
1 mica
1 tan
pinch of brown (to bring back a little more red)

Notice that I used more ingredients–that’s mainly because I had more trouble getting the color where I wanted it. Having a red would have come in handy. I would have put a pinch of red in instead of the brown that I had on hand. This makeup was “heavier” but it also concealed better. It was smooth and soft feeling. It reminded me of Revlon’s colorstay makeup. I could feel it more on my face, it concealed very well, but it was a bit more “visible” because light reflected off of it. There was no powdery residue in sunlight, but there was a matte/reflective look. This is a makeup that I think would work very well for going out at night. It adhered very well to my skin and wasn’t as likely as the tapioca based stuff to just rub off in an hour. It was not irritating at all. No itch, no drying; it felt almost like a cream. This one could easily be added to a cream, in fact, to make a liquid foundation.

Next recipe I tried, I took the above result and added rice flour. Basically I didn’t find that the extender and the micas let me lighten to color as much as I wanted. I can’t give a recipe because I really added this and that as I went along, trying to get the color and consistency right.

Rice flour was cheap - 3 dollars for a pound in the grocery store. It’s not as white as tapioca starch and when you’re mixing it, it “feels” grittier. This actually was a good thing. It helps smear the mica and color pigments very nicely. I needed more rice flour than tapioca to whiten. This flour is a great place to start testing recipes–it’s cheap, and it left NO powdery residue. None. This was one where I could stand in sunlight and not see makeup or powder. It doesn’t adhere to skin as well as the micas–they are necessary to “finish” the recipe. I’m not sure I have the ratios where I want. Once I got the color where I wanted it, I think it could have used more mica–more sticking power. Of course, I can only put so many batches on my arms and face, so for today, I left it. I’ll likely revisit it tomorrow.

Also, once I added rice flour–there was no making this one into a liquid foundation (if you want to make a liquid foundation try using Suave Oatmeal Lotion as your whitening agent in place of titanium dioxide or the rice flour–most lotions contain titanium dioxide so once you get the basic color where you want it, you can use a hand-type lotion to whiten it to your exact skin tone and create a liquid foundation.).

The rice flour I had was not fine enough and didn’t dissolve. There may be special grinds of rice powder that make it possible, but with the graininess, it wouldn’t work with this type.

In just the few tries I’ve completed, I have enough make-up to last me a year. I’m not sure how much further I’ll go until I’ve tried out the ones I’ve created. I’d like to “wear” them a few days and see how they hold up. I’d still like to try titanium dioxide as a white and having a red oxide on hand would really help me get the colors where I want them. If I put in another order, I’d probably order zinc oxide (sunscreen) as well.

I think I mentioned that my very first published short story ever Haunting Clues was going to be “produced” by Wrong World. I’m thrilled to be a part of their Halloween collection. The production is a cross between an audio and e-zine. They do some artwork for each story and a spiffy audio introduction for the collection. The story itself is embedded as a PDF for reading pleasure. At the end, there’s some pretty fancy sound affects/comments for those that want to click to the special effects. Very professional and unique.

Wrong World is very creative and constantly coming up with new ideas. This morning, they wrote enthusiastically about their latest. It seems they wish to record the authors reading a delightful introduction or other, perhaps more interesting blurb. It seems they don’t know that I sound like a dead pickle when recording.

I’ve listened to a few of the Wrong World productions. Those guys are good. Not a dead pickle anywhere.

Obviously, the only solution is a stunt reader. My brother can do a lot of voices. I wonder how good his female voice is…All he’s got to do is sound fun, cute, intelligent…and female.

Well, it’s August folks. And it has been August weather for three months here in Texas. Supposed to hit 100 again today. My fall tomato plants could go outside if it weren’t so hot. Tomatoes don’t do so great at 100 so I think I’ll be keeping them inside.

I’d like to get started on the winter crop. I usually do one or two that stay indoors all season. This year I plan on doing the Siberian (handles cold well) and maybe a Sugar Grape. I chose both of these because they are small–which means I stand a chance of getting some tomatoes quickly. If I plant a regular sized tomato, I end up with lots of leaves/plant and oh, maybe one tomato before I’m already transferring everything outside for a spring crop!

I don’t always do a winter crop. It can be a lot of work–planting the seeds when it’s in the 90s (or worse) keeping them watered and in the right window, cleaning up those inevitable water spills, and then sometimes having them die when you leave town and the neighbor doesn’t quite understand “every day” when you specify the watering schedule. Ah, gardening. And then there’s the dog days.

For those dog days, my friend (super librarian) Nancy Pendleton recommends a trip to Alaska. In her own words:

We took a cruise and had port calls in Juneau, Skagway, and Prince Rupert, British Columbia. We sailed on Royal Caribbean and the food and the service were both excellent. I would eventually like to try other cruise lines but, for the time being, I am beginning to plan my next cruise on Royal Caribbean.

Yes, it was cold (high was 55 one day) and raining which, none of us seemed to mind since we had seen no rain for months. The only thing I would change would be to have it rain just a little less in Juneau so we could have seen more and been able to take more pictures. Mom and I did have a good time in spite of getting soaked. We went panning for gold and then went to a salmon bake which, fortunately, was under covered shelters. The food was wonderful and there was a folksinger who encouraged audience participation.

My most memorable day was the one in Skagway. That was one of the 2 days it didn’t rain. (The other was the day we sailed out of Seattle.) We took a helicopter to the top of Denver glacier and rode in and drove a dog sled. They had gotten 3 inches of snow the night before. I have no idea what the temperature was on the glacier but, we were bundled up pretty well and were not extremely cold. The musher told us that the weather was actually a little warm for the dogs.

In Prince Rupert we took a boat tour to a grizzly bear sanctuary. The boat had an indoor cabin with comfortable seats so we were able to watch the bears (we saw 5) from a comfortable perch and the boat was large enough that we could easily move around. They also served us a delicious boxed lunch with homemade sandwiches and cookies.

The days cruising on the ship were also enjoyable just watching the landscape go by. We pulled as close to the Endicott glacier as the captain could go, got to take some good pictures, and observed the seals laying on pieces of floating ice.

I actually enjoyed the whole trip and got some awesome pictures. I still think they best ones are the ones in my head, though. Some images just simply cannot be captured through the lens of a camera.

Wow. I just got off the phone with American Express. In the past when we’ve traveled out of the country it has paid to exchange some money at their local office before leaving. They used to have pretty competitive rates–basically coming close to matching a credit card purchase (3 percent spread). Of course, credit cards in the last few years tacked on outrageous fees and changed their exchange rates such that costs for the consumer went waaay up. Apparently American Express thought raising fees/spreads was a good idea. Today the Euro is trading against the dollar at about 154.50. American Express was charging 1.66 to buy one Euro. Yikes. That’s a seven percent loss against the real value. No thanks.

I’m thinking I can do better via the ATM machine in Europe. I didn’t even ask what American express would pay to exchange back to dollars.

Anyone know any banks that have a better spread???

If you subscribe or happen to buy issue 12 of BlackGate, you MUST READ the story by Todd McAulty. It is Superb!!! (Issue 12 was also offered as a free PDF download–it may still be availabe at the website–check to see!)

One of the things the magazine BlackGate allows is longer stories. The Soldiers of Serenity by McAulty read like a novel. In so many short stories, the payoff is quick, sometimes dirty. Just as you “get” the characters, the story is over. Not So Here. McAulty took his time. He introduced characters. He ran down corridors. He twisted a bit…he teased. It’s all ordinary, right? But you knew every character held a key, every detail mattered. I kept wanting to check to see how much story was left because I just KNEW the pay-off was a few pages away! I couldn’t read fast enough! WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, DAMMIT?????

I can’t even tell you what kind of story this is, because it would ruin one of the surprises–that’s part of the key. You’re reading along, wondering, “So what is this story? Where’s the speculative element?” Then you think you know…

Even if you don’t like short stories (and there are ever so many that I don’t–the short story isn’t my favorite form!) But anyway–this story was entertaining, smart, twisted.

An excellent read.

Update: 8/10/08
The story Knives Under Spring Moon by Ed Carmien is also very good. The first part is a little slow, but the payoff comes very nicely with the later action and mysterious buildup of certain characters and concludes very satisfactorily.