The Mystery Of Balling, Partially Solved

In Aphrodite's post about the mysterious balling up powers that some moisturisers seem to posess, lots of you were trying to understand the reason why. It's absolutely my number one turn off with skincare, and it seems to happen way, waaaaaay too often. It's actually unassseptable (as Supernanny would say), and I really do wonder why skincare companies don't remedy it.

One cause of the ball-factor is sunscreen. It's awful because it's something we all should be using, but its inclusion in products often reduces the texture and quality of them, and it puts people off. So of course, that's a reason lots of brands don't include them in creams because they cause this exact problem. The way around this is to use a separate sunscreen, like Clinique City Block.

Secondly, the other thing that may cause this to happen is if you're using products with silicone in them. I was talking to Ken Boylan recently, of crack makeup artist team Boylan & Balfe, and he was re-educating me me about my love of Benefit's Dr Feelgood. He told me something that's very interesting - if you put Dr Feelgood on over a foundation that contains silicones, such as ones made by RMK, CoverFX or Shiseido, the two react. Silicone can't adhere to sillicone, so you get the ball-factor.

Similarily, If you're using a moisturiser with silicone in it, for example, Dermalogica's Barrier Repair, and something like Smashbox Photo Finish as a primer before foundation, the same thing will happen.