why are wax based paints only made in china?

why are wax based face paints only made in china? any of you know manufacturers and can enlighten us?

is it because the factory is already set up and they are just tweaking the formula and re-branding it?
is it because paraffin is a lot more expensive in the US, UK, Europe, and Australia?

to be honest, i'd prefer not to buy products made in china, due to the quality or contamination problems in food and cosmetics in recent years.

To my knowledge the companies themselves are not Chinese. TAG is an Austrailian Based Company and DFX is from the Netherlands I think. I think they merely manufacture them in China because it's probably were the plastic container is made (China is a world leader in plastic factories). I think they just all are put together in the country, but the brand itself is NOT Chinese.

You can check the MSDS of these paints to see what international cosmetic importing conditions they meet. I know that TAG and DFX pass the UK, USA, and Canadian Standards for cosmetic use, but you'd have to check about the others.

yes, i am aware it is just the manufacturing, not the company headquarters. do the face paints actually get checked for compliance on a regular basis?

and for those companies that do manufacture in the US or UK, like mehron, ben nye, ruby red, and snazaroo, why can't these companies manufacture face paint with the all important ingredient paraffin?

Dear jlirie:
The ingredients for glycerin-based paint does not include paraffin. Thank goodness for variety! Glycerin-based paints can blend together really well. I use different paints for different reasons...
Wax-based Global Strong Black for line work
Paraffin-based Mehron Paradise Black for the drop shadows in my avatar.

There are different artists, and different paints, and each one chooses different paints for different reasons.

You are a master at line work, jlirie! That is one of your many strengths, so wax-based paint will be your preference. I started out using Kryolan (under the label MAC) and I was really blown away when I was first exposed to wax-based paint. Now, I love them both, for different reasons.

Happy Painting!

turns out eulenspiegel has the same formula as the china produced face paint brands, and is manufactured in germany.

hard to get and more expensive, but i think i'll try out their pearl pallette (natch).

Orginally all the wax-based brands were coming out of the same factory - their original brand name was Lucky Art and they sold under their own label to start with (I have some samples). They also private labelled - which is what the first Wolfe paint was. Then other people started to buy the Lucky Art products and start their own labels/brands (DFX being one of them).

At that time they were coming from the same factory in China in the same containers, and then putting their own labels on them for re-sale. I have examples of many of them from the beginning.

There are now so many new "brands" around that it is hard to keep track of who is what. Most of the wax based (bees wax was the original wax in the first Wolfe, now it is paraffin) are still coming from China.

Companies will source from an established manufacturer as it is cheaper than setting up their own factory and developing their own recipes.

All brands have their uses. I prefer glycerin based for bases and direct skin contact, and the wax based for line work and details on top of a base.

that's what i'm looking for, a wax based paint for linework that's not made in china. i emailed eulenspiegel to confirm where it is manufactured and the rep said germany.

i expect they probably get some/all of the raw ingredients from china, as china is the main producer of paraffin, for example, but i would have more trust in us, uk, and european manufacturing.

the problem is eulenspiegel costs an arm and a leg to get from the uk or europe, 18-20% tax plus overseas shipping.

i only found one source in the us for the pearl color pallette of 6 basic colors, and it's still pricey, but i will probably order it to see how it works.

I really don't like the stigma that China gets for it's products.

Is there a lot of cr@p that comes out of China?
Yes.

Are there a lot of unsafe products that come out of China?
Yes.

Are there a lot of companies in China that don't make safe work environments or adequately pay their employees?
Yes.

Are there a lot of people from China who migrate to Vancouver Canada and get fake drivers licences, then drive dangerously/stupidly and cut you off in traffic? *eye twich*
Again - Yes.

Is this true for the ENTIRE Country? 
No.

Simply 'being from China' doesn't mean that every single product, (or person) that comes out of the country is bad.

This to me is a form of 'Product Racism'. Where people freak out the moment they see 'Made in China' on their products, and automatically assume it's cr@p or unsafe, without any further research.

As Shannon said they all started from the same factory and re-branded into various different brands. That's probably the case considering the similarities in not only the paint but also the containers. 
But I also get the feeling this information might be partially out of date, as I have noticed distinct differences in the Wolf, Tag, and DFX paints. Wolf I find is more 'creamy' but also has a higher wax content according to it's ingredients list in comparison to the others. Tag black does not stain like Wolf. Also the difference in colors available to each brand. Clearly this has changed over the years that they all have a slightly different makeup and are not simply the same paint with different brand names. 

Perhaps they do still all come out of the same factory and merely the recipe is changed between batches. Or perhaps the company expanded and they are all made in different factory locations. I don't know. But it's worth looking into, as things do change with time.

But one thing I do know is that this is a huge well established company and factory that makes quality products and not cheap ones. When you look at the MSDS, and the list of ingredients, it's pretty clear that these are safe products that meet various western countries safety standards.

I have never had an issue with wax based paints from this company, nor have I even heard of issues others on the forum have had with them in regards to safety. 

What I'm trying to say is that it's not universally true that everything that comes out of China is automatic dumpster fodder. You can get excellent products and sh!t products from the same country.  Western countries are not exempt from sh!tty products, just look at Ford VS Toyota (FORD = Fix Or Repair Daily), there is even an entire generation of Toyota pickup trucks where the cabs were made in Japan but then shipped to the US and had the back box (the pickup portion) which was made in the USA installed. You see those trucks now and the boxes on the trucks have just rusted and crumbled, while the cab remains totally fine. 

Or if your think the Western countries like the USA (sorry if I'm picking on them a lot lol) are the leaders in product safety then prepare to have that bubble burst. 
Paints made at 5:26,
8:33 - 8:47


I think it's time western society stopped treating 'Made in China' as a warning label, with blanket assumptions.

i was referring to problems that have come up in recent years, some of which were very serious, resulting in illness and death among children and adults. none of the products were face paints, thankfully, and as you mention, it is good to know that there have been no problems with any face paint brands.

these instances were from products contaminated with chemicals that were used as fillers, instead of the proper ingredients. this was done on purpose by the manufacturers to save money.

you usually don't hear things like that coming out of western countries. and for the most part, our regulatory agencies and procedures are usually more comprehensive, and more often enforced.

there are always exceptions, as you can't check up on everyone to be sure they are producing safe, quality products, and regulators are subject to the same faults as everyone else.

jlirie wrote:you usually don't hear things like that coming out of western countries. and for the most part, our regulatory agencies and procedures are usually more comprehensive, and more often enforced.

there are always exceptions, as you can't check up on everyone to be sure they are producing safe, quality products, and regulators are subject to the same faults as everyone else.

Yeah... about that...
 
This is one hell of an 'exception'.

Yeah.... some times i wish i didn't read/research so much. Not only did the company allow that to happen, but the FDA, the US Gov, and France's Gov, and many others.... just wow.

Point being is it's not just China, and that even well known brands in the US can knowingly put the public at risk to save money. 

The only thing we can go from is the information at hand. Right now everything I read tells me that wax based paints from this company are safe, so I don't feel there is need to think any differently just because the factory in in China.

Sadly though the 'made in china' stigma is so bad I've blacked out that part of the label on the bottom because some parents just wouldn't understand even if i spelled it out for them. :/

It is not simply a matter of thinking that the "Made In China" sticker means the product may be unsafe as compared to other Made In areas.

The issue for many is simply that products coming from China are made under a communist dictatorship. As a dictatorship, China rule does not believe in the advancement of worker right's. Hence when using and buying these prodcuts manufactured in China you are support human rights violations.

As for the safety factor if China does not care about it's own workers, it own children, it sure in the heck does not care about yours.

If you know anyone who does business in China, as some of us do, you can hear first hand reports of how the regulatory system there operates. There is just not in place a system to keep products surely "safe".

I am not commenting that using these brands make us right or wrong, good or bad....just pointing out facts.

My response:

"if China does not care about it's own workers, it own children, it sure in the heck does not care about yours."

Sure it does. Why? Simple - we are the customer, aka, the ones with money. They don't want to poison their cash cows. I know it sounds harsh but it's true.

It seems to me that most of the products that come out of china to western markets are safe because of the import regulations we have in place. 

Finally no one has ever reposted a problem with these products in the many years they have been on the market.

So there are 3 reasons to believe they are safe.

1. The don't want to poison the rich white people who buy their stuff.
2. Import laws have stricter regulations then domestic safety laws.
2. No problems reported.

China does a lot of things to it's workers I don't agree with. So does America... so does Canada. How many bills and lobbyists are right now trying to break down unions? What about Walmart? It closed it's doors in Quebec because workers wanted to form a Union. Last time a checked Walmart was American owned.

Or what about gutting the pensions of Vets? US and Canada have that going of them. Heck our government is battling a class action lawsuit against it's veterans. The gov. argue our country holds no extraordinary social obligation to ex-soldiers.

I could go on and on, and suddenly we really look no better then 'the commies'. 



But fact is you can't really buy or so anything in our lavish western world that doesn't somehow effect an orphaned child a few worlds away. Walk into Micheal's or Hobby Lobby and more then half of their products are from China. It's like this with pretty much everything. And when push comes to shove, it's not that China is exploiting it's workers, it's that Western Companies don't care as long as they can get the stuff cheap. 

And we are the suckers who buy it. This certainly isn't news to me. I know I can't boycott everything, I still need gas for the car etc. even though it's exploiting another nation (or my own *cough* Tar Sands *cough*). 

I can boycott the biggest baddest culprits, like Coke/Nestlé, Walmart etc.

But of that long list, my face paint supplier doesn't make much of an impact in comparison. :/

Sadly, this is the world we live in, and we do what we can.

well, if anyone in the western world wants to make face paint with a paraffin based formula like the good ones, i will buy it, even if it cost somewhat more. turns out albatross12 doesn't recommend eulenspiegel due to poor opacity and staining issues.

i am old enough to remember when we really started importing a lot of products from china, our standard of living has benefited a lot from inexpensive products because of their low cost of labor. one can only hope they have imported some of the more positive social influences from us.

If I could buy locally like I do with the farmers market I would jump on that. The funny part is the the prices wouldn't even have to go up significantly, they only would if the companies wanted to make the same huge profits as before. A sad state of affairs.