According to new reports, many brands of lipstick contain lead in their lip products.  EEK! Lead is unsafe in paint…  how scary that we have been puting it directly on our lips!  Good news!  The lip products offered by Affordable Mineral Makeup™ are safe and contain no lead.  All of their ingredients are listed in  each product description (see here) so you can see exactly what you are puting on your skin.

http://www.safecosmetics.org/article.php?id=223

Lead in Lipstick

Lead in lipstick? Turns out, the ur­ban legend is true. In October 2007, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics tested 33 popular brands of lipsticks at an independent lab for lead content.

The results: 61 percent of lipsticks contained lead, with levels ranging up to 0.65 parts per million. Lead-contaminated brands included L’Oreal, Cover Girl and even a $24 tube of Dior Addict.

No Safe Dose

Lead, even in tiny amounts, is a health concern.

“Lead builds up in the body over time and lead-containing lipstick applied several times a day, every day, can add up to significant exposure levels. The latest studies show there is no safe level of lead exposure,” according to Mark Mitchell, M.D., MPH, president of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice.

Lead is a proven neurotoxin that can cause learning, language and behavioral problems such as lowered IQ, reduced school performance and increased aggression. Pregnant women and young children are particularly vulnerable to lead exposure. Lead easily crosses the placenta and enters the fetal brain where it can interfere with normal development. Lead has also been linked to infertility and miscarriage.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states on its Web site: “Recent studies suggest that adverse health effects exist in children at blood lead levels less than 10 µg/dl.” CDC admits that it has not lowered the acceptable lead level in part because “there is no evidence of a threshold below which adverse effects are not experienced.” The agency suggests avoiding all sources of lead exposure.

Lead-free Lipstick Is Possible

The good news is that lipstick doesn’t need to contain lead: 39 percent of lipsticks tested by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics were lead-free – including a $1.99 tube of Wet & Wild. Obviously, it is possible to make lead-free red lipstick.

So why aren’t all companies doing so?

Because they don’t have to. It’s legal for lipstick and other cosmetic products sold in the United States to contain unlimited amounts of lead. While some companies are taking care to use raw materials that are not contaminated with lead and to purchase lead-free pigments, other companies are not taking these precautions. For the list of all the brands we tested for lead, see page 10 of our report, “A Poison Kiss”.

Status Update

After the October 2007 release of our report, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced they would investigate lead in lipstick. Despite the urging of three U.S. Senators, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and concerned consumers, the FDA has never released its own testing data, nor has the agency taken any action.

A state bill to ban lead from lipstick passed the California Senate in 2008, but died after a massive industry lobby effort. Look for the bill to be re-introduced in California in 2009.

What You Can Do

Because lead is a contaminant not listed on lipstick ingredient labels, it’s next to impossible for consumers to avoid. You’d have to test every lipstick on the market to know which ones contain lead – testing that shouldn’t fall to consumers. But don’t let that dissuade you from doing something: e-mail, call or write to the companies that make your favorite lipstick shades and tell them that lead-free products are important to you.