Mineral Madness

As long as there are new and exciting trends in makeup, there will be crazed addicts following them. The bandwagon that drugstore brands are finally jumping on is the mineral powder obsession. I have yet to try any of the products (partly because I'm happy with my own makeup regime, and partially because until Maybelline and Cover Girl, mineral makeup has been pretty pricey), but I'm going to look through the websites and try to decipher between the hype and the best buy.

Bare Escentuals, which is available online, Sephora and probably the TV, too has a really nice start-up package. For something like $60, you get nine products (four brushes, five powders), however you don't get the same deal when you need to replace one of the nine. I've had roommates who swear by bare minerals and the initial price tag seems alluring, but I think I'd need to test it out myself to decide whether the price tag is worth it (maybe another trip to Sephora...).

Bare Minerals

Sheer Cover gave Leeza Gibbons a makeup pedestal during infomercials. That's about the only good thing I can say. The website really has nothing to say about the product, unless you watch the videos, which mimic the infomercials. I don't see prices, unless you count the 60-day guarantee that is plastered all over the website. In addition, there are no pictures of the product, just lots of Leeza Gibbons.

Sheer Cover

Cover Girl has four mineral makeup products, and it's part of the already-established TruBlend collection. If that weren't enough to show that CG may not be ready for minerals, the mineral foundation is a pressed powder, however the bronzer and blush are both loose powders. The online reviews of the foundation are not great, and the vague mineral "powder" doesn't have many great reviews either. The blush had fantastic reviews while the bronzer had mixed reviews. If you do choose to buy into CG's mineral makeup, use your own brush. I think I'll wait to see how the labs at CG improve the product before I invest. (Though all of the products are economical and fit into CG's established price range).

Cover Girl

Maybelline is another drugstore brand to try its hand at minerals. It seems as though Maybelline is the brand with the most diversity in products. If you like liquid concealer and foundation, they have it. If you like powder (which is what I generally think of when I imagine mineral makeup), this one has better credentials than CG's, and has a better applicator. This powder foundation has won awards and been recognized by Oprah. And it comes in at about $10; I may make a trip to Walgreens soon. The finishing veil that Maybelline retails is a pressed powder - they also have a bronzing veil, but I think in the future they may come out with a loose powder veil. Even the mineral blush has racked some awards, and it comes in more shades than CG's two.

Maybelline

I'll go out an try some of the Maybelline mineral makeup. It fits my budge the best (you can get all of the products for roughly the same price as the Bare Escentuals starter kit, and they are much cheaper to replace) and honestly seems like it's the best buy all around with the awards it's won.