Lush Dusting Powder and Talc: A Cornstarch and Kaolin Base

There is a small shop at 29 High Street in Poole, on the south coast of England, where a lot of modern bath culture quietly began. Lush opened there in 1995, started by six co-founders including Mark and Mo Constantine, after their earlier mail-order business, Cosmetics To Go, collapsed from over-trading and a flood. Mark had been making herbal products since he first sold them with Liz Weir in 1977, and Lush says it wanted no preservatives and no packaging, then worked toward both bit by bit. That is the philosophy behind a Lush dusting powder called Silky Underwear, which is self-preserving and comes in a recyclable bottle. The base is corn starch and kaolin, with grated Fair Trade organic cocoa butter that melts on contact, plus jasmine absolute and vetivert oil. Lush's own directions are to sweep it over freshly moisturized skin to absorb excess oil. I like it because it is a powder with manners: it smells of jasmine and something faintly warm from the cocoa butter. The edit starts with it and three more scented powders, each with its own small family story. Camille Beckman began in Idaho in 1984 with dried flower wreaths and potpourri, and L'Erbolario began in 1978 as an herbalist's shop in Lodi, Italy.

Grid two is for the days the thermometer wins. Megababe was started in 2017 by Katie Sturino, who launched with Thigh Rescue and a talc-free dust for breast sweat. Body Dust in Lavender is the brand's all-over shaker, with aloe and chamomile, and I like that it is made for sweaty feet, waistbands and thighs without pretending to be perfume. Happy Curves is built from tapioca, calamine, chamomile and aloe, and it is aimed at chafing and foot odor. Gold Bond has been around since 1908, and its Comfort version is the gentle one, with chamomile and aloe. Shower to Shower swapped talc for corn starch in 2018, and the company said at the time that the change was made to keep pace with market trends and customer preferences. Any talc-free powder works best on skin that is fully dry, so tap a little into your palm first. Then pat it on where skin rubs, rather than shaking a cloud into the air.

Grid three is the puff drawer, and it is older than the rest of the edit. Burt's Bees began in Maine in 1984, when Roxanne Quimby started making candles from Burt Shavitz's leftover beeswax, and the baby powder here is cornstarch based and talc-free. Greenwich Bay adds a puff to lavender and chamomile, with jojoba, aloe and shea butter. Megababe's Dust Puff is the oversized pink tool, and Sturino has said customers asked for it, so it exists because powder on bare hands gets messy. Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds arrived in 1991, and The Fragrance Foundation named it Fragrance of the Year in 1992; the scent is a floral chypre of lily, tuberose and sandalwood. What I would skip is pressing the puff hard into a wet towel-dried body. Powder on damp skin clumps, so let the skin dry first, then dip the puff lightly and tap off the excess before it touches you.

Think of body powder as the last step, not the first. Moisturize, let it settle, then take a very light dusting wherever skin meets skin or fabric. I keep one scented jar by the mirror and one plain shaker in the bag, and between them they cover a wedding, a heat wave and a long flight. Nobody has ever asked me what I put on, only why I smell so calm.