Women and the Lipstick Load

December 3, 2009

Bionsen, a British natural deodorant company, reported in November that women in the UK wear approximately 515 different chemicals on their bodies each day. These chemicals accumulate from lotions, moisturizers, foundation, hair sprays, lipsticks, blush, fake tans and perfume, among other toiletries.

The vast majority of the 2016 women polled were not concerned and only 10% routinely shop for chemical-free products.

Many Americans share the same responses. When The Environmental Working Group (EWG) reported last year that teenage girls are exposed to an array of chemicals from cosmetics and body products that interfere with puberty, the story slipped from the national headlines, allowing many of those toxic ingredients to continue to pop up in mainstream cosmetic products, notably parabens in perfume and lead in lipstick.

No stranger to the lipstick issue, the FDA recently revisited it. It concluded that every one of the 20 brands tested contained levels of lead. Nevertheless, the FDA finds no safety concern and contends that the lead levels "are permissible". But those levels are high enough to warrant an ongoing plan "to investigate a wider range of lipsticks than has been tested so far."

Canada's Reaction

Canada has taken a very different stance on lipstick. It banned the use of lead as an ingredient earlier this year. California, on the other hand, struck down such an initiative last year.

Lipstick Plus a Load

If only it were lipstick.

The FDA's assertion that the lead levels in lipstick are not a safety concern may be true for each isolated dash of Revlon or L'Oreal but it's slicing and dicing the issue. Women don't stop the cosmetic party at lipstick. Instead, a typical beauty regimen includes hairspray, blush, creams, perfume, moisturizers and a host of other products with "permissible" chemical levels. It's the untold combination of these chemicals and their accumulation in each individual body that renders a single-product study, at best, incomplete. If you consider the entire cosmetic cocktail, one could argue that these studies are entirely inconclusive.

Alternatives such as the Teens Turning Green Collection, a body care line that launched in '08 at Whole Foods Market, are gradually gaining exposure. But with a cosmetic industry entrenched in mass production that is slow to change, consumers, particularly women and teens, should consider dumping moisturizers for homemade avocado concoctions and in-store natural skin care lines. And of course there's always the option of clearing out the cupboard, dumping all those chemicals and living make-up free.

1. 1. 
      ^a Lipsticks selected are the same brands and shades analyzed by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (http://www.safecosmetics.org/your_health/poisonkiss.cfm ).
   2. ^b Lot numbers embossed or printed on lipstick cases or end labels.
   3. ^c Results are for total lead content determined by FDA's validated method [Reference 1].
   4. ^d Reported in units of µg Pb/g in Reference 1.
   5. ^e Combination of several lots.
   6. ^f Result not used for determining average value of lead content by FDA's validated method.
   7. ^g No shade number on lipstick.
   8. ^h No lot number on lipstick.

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   References:

   ¹ Hepp, N. M., Mindak, W. R., and Cheng, J., "Determination of Total Lead in Lipstick: Development and Single Lab Validation of a Microwave-Assisted Digestion, Inductively Coupled Plasma–Mass Spectrometric Method," Journal of Cosmetic Science, Vol. 60, No. 4, July/August, 2009.

   
   

   Annotated Table excerpted from the FDA NewsSip

Photo Credit: Lipstick Army by Riley

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