Silk Naturals

Hi All,
I am just beginning to grow my SN collection, and while I love everything (lol) I am a bit hesitant to buy huge numbers of eyeshadows (I already have a whole train case of mineral eyeshadows, which will take me forever to use up) when they only have a 2 year lifespan. Also, how do you know whether the silk dust in your products has gone off? Does it smell funny? Change colour? Has anyone had any experience with their eyeshadows going off?

Foundation obviously is not a problem, as I am going to use that up on a regular basis, but I don't want to end up having to throw out my eyeshadow collection.

Thanks

Excellent question! The quick answer is- I don't think you have anything to worry about. Nothing truly bad, foul, or harmful happens. Silk gets used in medical devices that are actually implanted into people, and has been for years, so they've done a lot of research into what really happens to silk over a long period of time, and I've never ever seen any sort of research suggesting anything harmful happens. What does happen is that as a fiber it loses tensile strength as the proteins age- and it's really on a microscopic level- it's not something you'd notice. Moisture and enzymes break it down, so as long as you're handling it in a relatively sanitary way (use a swirly bowl), it's most likely going to be something that you can use for a very very long time (decades) without anything bad happening to you. We keep samples of each batch of stuff we make (it's an FDA regulation), and I haven't seen anything visibly go bad. I found part of batch #1 of Perfecting Powder the other day (well over 3 years old), and I wouldn't hesitate to use it- and it's been in my garage- so nothing fancy as far as storage or anything.

The initial batches of silk powder I got had expiration dates on them- this was 3 years ago. So when we built the site, we put that everything had a 2 year shelf life because that was what was on the packages of silk that we received. The newer batches don't have expiration dates on them, and US Pharmacopeia lists it as non-degradable. I know my supplier changed suppliers a few years ago- so I know there's a difference between what we started using, and what we use now. The powder we use is 100% fibroin- in case you're doing any pub med reading.

If you ever have insomnia- here's an article that explains the entire process:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2680630/

So... wait a minute, this means that I don't have to limit my stash for fear of anything going off? woohoo parrrty!!!

Thanks for that info Karen. Apart from peace of mind, that's really rather interesting knowledge. Cheers.

Agreed! That is DEF good to know!

Thanks Lily for the excellent question and thanks so much for your thorough answer Karen! I'm sure that question has been on a lot of people's minds, and we can now all be happy and not worry about buying more makeup than we can possibly use in a two (or more) year time frame.

EDIT: I also want to say how very impressed I am with Karen and Jen that they are so involved with this forum. It truly makes SN stand out from the rest of the mineral makeup companies out there and shows how much you care about your customers and how passionate you are about your products. It's extremely rare to see this in any company, and I love to know that I can support a company that really cares about me. Thanks very much!!

That's great to know Karen. I had a quick look at that article, it discusses the decomposition in vivo, i.e. within the human body, which obviously our eyeshadow isnt and I had a quick google and checked some MSDS's, there doesn't seem to be any obvious data about degradation of silk powder or timelines or anything (I am a scientist, lol, so a bit of a geek about this sort of thing) so I guess I'll take the FDA's word for it that it is going to stay good
Yay! As soon as I have some more cash I will be back to start building my SN eyeshadow collecction

so so so bad for my wallet.
thanks for the great information!!

Thank you so much for the info!

oh dear, now i don't have a good enough excuse to not over buy! Oh well, i love your products too much to not over buy!

He he, glad to have a chance to enable!