Water-activated face paint

Water-activated face paint is makeup made like a watercolour. Pigment is bound with glycerin, soaps or waxes and pressed into a cake; a damp brush or sponge worked across the surface lifts a creamy paint that dries in a minute or two to a flexible, matte film. More water gives a sheer wash, less an opaque line. It needs no powder and comes off with soap and water, which is why it is the paint of children’s parties, festivals and body painting.

It is not greasepaint, which is oil-based, stays soft and must be powdered, nor the liquid body paint sponged or sprayed over whole bodies, though the same houses often make all three. Within the kind, single cakes come in matte, metallic and pearl finishes, palettes hold a set of colours, and split cakes press several stripes side by side, so that one stroke of a flat brush lays down a gradient.

Face paint goes on skin, often on children, so read the box before choosing colours. In the United States every colour additive in a cosmetic must be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, face paint and theatrical makeup included, and approved colours come with limits on where they may be used.^[1] The agency suggests checking each colour in the ingredient list against its summary of approved additives: if one is missing, “the company that made it is not obeying the law”.^[1] A Colour Index number on its own does not show that a colour has been certified for use in the United States.^[2] For children, choose a paint whose maker publishes its full ingredient list and sells it as face and body paint, not as a craft colour.

Neon and glow effects need the most care. Fluorescent “day-glow” colours are approved only with limits, and none for use near the eyes; the only glow-in-the-dark colour approved for cosmetics is meant for occasional use, and never around the eyes.^[1] Never paint a face with craft paint, markers or anything else not made for skin, and throw away a cake that smells bad, which can be a sign that it is contaminated. If a paint is new to you, the FDA suggests trying a dab on the arm for a couple of days first.^[1]

Wet the brush or sponge, not the cake. Work the damp tool across the surface until it carries a creamy paint, thicker for a base and thinner and inky for line work, and test it on the back of your hand. Sponge a base on in thin, even layers and let each dry before the next; paint lines and details with a round brush held upright, and blend while the paint is still wet, because once dry it holds. Work from light to dark: pale bases first, darker shapes over them once they are dry, then black outlines and white highlights last. To load a split cake, sweep a flat brush or sponge across all its stripes at once.

Keep a clean sponge and fresh rinse water for each face, let wet cakes dry before closing them, and store them clean, dry and covered. Makers warn against red, orange and yellow around the eyes and blue and green on the lips; follow the label. When the day is over, remove the paint the way the label says — for most cakes, soap and warm water — gently around the eyes, and never sleep in it.^[3]

The water-activated cake began as a base for actors. In 1936 the Max Factor company patented a make-up for Technicolor film; first used on screen in 1937, it was sold to the public as Pan-Cake in 1938 — a powder bound into a dried cream that a wet sponge brought back to life. Its success gave the name cake make-up to a whole class of products, and in 1952 the secretary of the American Medical Association’s committee on cosmetics said that cake make-up “was first developed to replace greasepaint for theatrical use”. An earlier attempt had failed for a practical reason: paste make-ups hand-pressed into porcelain jars in the early 1910s dried out, came loose and were sent back to the factory rattling in their jars.^[4]

Colour brought the law. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 regulated cosmetics for the first time, required coal-tar colours to be listed as “harmless and suitable”, and made batch certification compulsory. After children fell ill in 1950 from an orange Halloween sweet coloured with a listed dye, and Congress held hearings on additives, the agency re-examined every listed colour, and the Color Additive Amendments of 1960 allowed only those listed as “suitable and safe” for a particular use.^[5] Theatrical and Halloween makeup are cosmetics under those rules.^[6]

Special effects came later. In August 2000 the FDA approved luminescent zinc sulfide for facial makeup, at no more than a tenth of the product and for “limited, infrequent occasions, e.g., Halloween”, with “Do not use in the area of the eye” on the label.^[7] In March 2005 and May 2009 face paints were recalled after causing rashes, itching and minor swelling where they had been applied.^[8] The cake itself is a simple object; what it is made of is the part with a history.