I gathered this news 5 years ago from guardian.com. A story in the New York Times has warned that lipstick contains metals such as lead and aluminium. Surely, these chemicals are toxic. This story comes alive when I started seeing warning signs.
I have now an 11 years old daughter starting to wear lipstick and had been using it since grade school when they have events or school programmes. I am starting to worry. What should I do? Lead is toxic to our body especially in children. aluminium powder used to stabilise colour bleeding , is also toxic.
The facts I gathered from the guardian.com includes .The US food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a report on lead and lipsticks and has an ongoing Q&A page on its website. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a report on lead and lipsticks and has an ongoing question and answer page on its website, as this issue was 5 yrs ago. It found that lead levels in 400 lipsticks it tested ranged from 0.026 parts per million (or ppm) to 7.19ppm. The FDA says these are not levels to worry about – even though they are higher than the recommended amount of lead in sweets, which is 0.1ppm.
New York Times story is based on a research paper in Environmental Health Perspective (EHP) whose lead author, DR. Katharine Hammond was, quoted in saying: Treat (lipstick) like something dangerous, because if ( children) eat it we are talking about a comparatively large level of metals going into small body.”
In the EHP study researchers tested the metal content of 32 lip products and found that in nearly half of the samples the lead level was more than 0.1ppm. Aluminium and other metals were found in higher concentrations than lead. The authors then estimated how much of each metal a person would eat, based on industry assumptions of how much lipstick people swallow a day (24mg) and warned that people could be getting more metals from their lipstick than is good for them. Evidence for the effects of other metals is weaker than for lead.
The industry argues that lead is fairly ubiquitous and that we ingest more from other sources than we ever could from lipstick. TheHealth Protection Agency lists sources of lead, saying: “Exposure to inorganic lead occurs primarily through food and drinking water, although exposure via soil, dust, air and paint chips significantly contribute to the overall exposure.”The variation in lead levels between manufacturers suggests some could reduce contamination (lead is banned from cosmetics in the UK). But the Cosmetics Europe website says any lead ingestion from makeup is 1,000 times less than the amount we swallow in drinking water.
Anyone looking for more rational information on the risk of any chemicals should go to the Environmental Working Group website. Thank you to guardian.com for this educational facts.
Now Should I still worry or not?
How sure are we really that there are no lipsticks products or other make-up products that contains harmful chemicals that are sneaking in UK or to other countries ? I am just so petrified of what happened to Kylie Jenner’s very expensive famous lipsticks and known to be good? Some people who wanted to buy her products in a cheaper cost did not realise it was fake but it had caused extremely bad allergic reactions to their lips and body. There are still people out there trying to earn money in a bad way by selling fake products and maybe still lurking for the next victims.
I think it is not only the lipsticks that we should be worried about, there are still other products Im sure out there has the same dilemma but it is only the lipsticks of Kylie Jenner being highlighted due to the recent news, which her new launched lipstick brand was greatly affected. Hundred thousand’s worth of lipsticks or more were sold in less than a minute in the entire history of lipstick brands. Can you imagine that? Or is this another way of destroying her brand? Some sort of competitors strategies? I don’t know!
We still want to look and feel good but in a safe way right?
Let me know on what you think about this issue. Although the news from New York Times was ages ago, just this recent Jenner lipstick issue is worrying me. How sure are we really what’s written in the tin is what’s exactly in it? let me know if you have same bad experiences as Kylie’s fans or any thoughts about this matters.