Is There Lead in Your Lipstick?
This came as somewhat of a jolt to the women out there who wear lipstick on a daily basis, or even just a couple times a weak. Apparently many popular brands of lipstick contain a potentially toxic heavy metal that’s gotten a bad rap for years as being a toxin in the body - lead. Lead was required to be removed from many paints, childrens toys and tons of other products as an additive years ago by the FDA, since it was found thad lead is a toxin to the human body.
This is particularly alarming since lipstick goes on the lips, and the lips absorb everything the sits on them, so it can potentially be making its way directly into your blood stream. THe whole problem is that the FDA has not yet set a safety level for the heavy metal in lipstick yet, so technically these companies are really doing nothing wrong or illegal (perhaps unethical from a responsibility to consumers standpoint though in my opinion) by having lead in their red lipstick. It only mentioned red by the way, and I assume this is to achieve the darker pigmentation of reds.
About half the lipsticks tested of various brands, including Cover Girl, Christian Dior and L’Oreal (one of my favorites in other areas, but I don’t buy their lipstick) had lead in them. About one third of all the lipsticks tested had lead that was over the safety level designated for candy in them, and that’s not good, since lipstick is basically eated and swallowed many times, just like candy is, and can be easily absorbed by the body on the lips.
Here’s the good news though. 39% of the lipsticks tested by the consumer advocacy group had no traceable lead whatsoever in them. The panel is urging cosmetic companies to take all lead out of its lipsticks, as it is apparently possible to make lipsticks without the toxic substance in it. We’ll see if they take the bait. I’m sure the panel doing these tests has drawn some attention, and at least as a good PR move, some of these cosmetic giants will at least address the problem. You may want to look up the lipsticks that contain the lead though online, since your lipstick could potentially be one of them.
