By Dave Orrick, St. Paul Pioneer Press

RED WING — You could call it man makeup.

It’s a water-based skin application made from natural ingredients such as organic rooibos tea and zinc oxide. It’s nonallergenic, won’t clog your pores, doesn’t stain clothes and provides protection from the sun. It’ll last all day with nary a touch-up and is water-resistant but can be removed with just a wet cloth.

No animals were harmed during its development.

But it’s deadly on wild turkeys.

It’s camouflage face paint for hunters.

Natural Camo is the brainchild of Sven and DeAnna Fleischaker, who mix, test and distribute their product from a renovated pole barn on the outskirts of Red Wing.

They bill it as the only all-natural face paint product for hunters looking to hide from their quarries. Waterfowl hunters, deer bow hunters and wild turkey hunters make up the largest share of hunters who don camouflage.

Minnesota’s spring wild turkey hunting season began April 16 and continues through May 29, when temperatures will be warm enough to make a camo mask uncomfortably stuffy. Male wild turkeys — the target of the spring season — are among the most difficult birds to kill, with often fewer than one in three hunters succeeding. The wary birds are gifted in sight, so concealing one’s face is a major asset.

But traditional olive-and-khaki camouflage face paint contains waxes or oils — using recipes largely unchanged since it was developed for soldiers in World War II. It’s gooey, can stain clothing and often requires soap or alcohol to remove.

Nearly five years ago, Sven Fleischaker had enough of the traditional stuff, which he calls “grease.”

“I was waterfowl hunting and I wore the grease, and it was just a pain,” said Fleischaker, 46, whose acreage, which borders Frontenac State Park, affords him daily access to wildlife, including spring gobblers to hunt on his property. “After a few days of wearing the grease, my face would break out. It didn’t feel good. And it would literally stain my shower when I cleaned up. It seemed to me there was a need for a better product.”

His wife, who goes by Dee, operates a makeup business focusing on skin-healthy products. A hunter herself, she had an idea.

“I mixed up some colors and powdered his face,” she said inside the couple’s workshop.

“Yeah, it worked,” Sven Fleischaker said, “but I told her, ‘I can’t do that to hunters, ask them to powder their faces. At least not the men.’ “

After some trial and error, the couple hit on a substance based on distilled water. It’s applied with a small rollerball, similar to roll-on deodorant. They debuted it in 2010 at Game Fair, an annual outdoors expo in Anoka County, and sold out their inventory.

Sven Fleischaker, who grew up in Eagan and settled in Goodhue County in 1995, works swing shifts as a power plant operator for the city of Rochester. He had a decision to make: quit his job and go whole hog into Natural Camo or keep the steady income and expand the company slowly.

He chose the latter.

“Growing slowly gave us the chance to work out a lot of early problems,” he said, listing metal cases that rusted and screw-on caps that cracked in the cold as early hiccups.

Natural Camo isn’t available through major retailers. Although the company is beginning to distribute to small sporting goods stores, it’s still primarily a cash business, with sales made via its website, NaturalCamo.com.

The Fleischakers sell about 400 kits annually, earning them a modest income, but they say each year brings new customers, and they’re relying on word-of-mouth testimonials, both spoken and transmitted via social media, as their major marketing force. The Fleischakers also offer custom colors mixed to order. Another line of face paint, Sportstripe, targets groups such as cheerleaders and sports fans, with Vikings purple and Packers gold well-stocked.

Compared to traditional hunter face paint, Natural Camo isn’t cheap. A kit sells for $24.95. It includes similar volumes to wax-based products that sell for $10 or less at big-box stores. The Fleischakers recently began offering a $5.95 sample kit that will last for a few outings as a low-cost option.

Sven Fleischaker believes the product sells itself once a hunter tries it, especially the easy-to-remove aspect.

“People can go out in the stand or blind in the morning and then go right into the office without having to shower,” he said.

As a result, hunters will be less likely to apply the paint sparingly and will conceal themselves better, he said.

“If you’re going after turkeys or ducks, you really don’t want just a few lines on your cheeks. You want to hide that entire moonface.”

The side-by-side inventory of Dee Fleischaker’s Mineral Silk line of makeup and Sven Fleischaker’s Natural Camo makes for interesting contrasts inside their workshop.

On one shelf are colors named First Date, Peachy Keen, Secret Crush and Flirt. On another lie Mallard Green, Muddy Brown, Cornfield and Gun Metal Grey.

You can guess which is which.