Commercial powders

Many nineteenth century beauty books contained recipes that readers could use to make face powder at home. However, as the century drew to a close, more women chose to purchase face powders from local chemists/druggists – usually sold in unmarked packets – or bought trade-named powders – generally sold in a decorated powder-box.

Early commercial face powders were relatively simple mixtures of three or more substances. Common ingredients included talc, natural starches like potato and rice, calcium carbonate (chalk), magnesium carbonate, kieselguhr (diatomite), washed china clay (kaolin), bismuth subchloride and subnitrate, zinc and magnesium stearate, ground orris root and zinc oxide. Some of these, such as orris root and bismuth compounds, fell out of favour, while others, like zinc oxide, that were initially treated with suspicion, became staple ingredients.

The substances from which … powder is chiefly made are the following: Starch-flour, such as wheat starch, rice starch, corn (Maize) starch, potato starch, also pistachio-nut flour; all these starches are well adapted for the powders under consideration, because, owing to their fineness, they always lie close together and consequently display good covering power. Further, good use is made of carbonate of magnesia, bismuth white and especially talcum, in addition, occasionally, the finest sifted chalk. A very important constituent of powder is oxide of zinc, owing to its great covering power, also by reason of its adhesive properties, as an addition to the lighter kinds of starch and also of carbonate of magnesia. It forms an important component of all kinds of powders, aside from the fact that from a hygienic point of view it is very desirable. In addition to oxide of zinc, stearate of zinc merits special mention because, by reason of the large amount of stearine it contains, it possesses unusual adhesive properties, which cannot be too highly considered.

(Mann, 1912, p. 161)

In the first half of the twentieth century, loose face powders developed from its relatively simple beginnings into a widely used cosmetic with an extensive array of available commercial products.