Study Showing Arsenic, Lead in Lip Gloss has us asking: Is your Makeup Safe?

August 8th, 2011. By Hunter West

Insomuch as we are conditioned, in this day and age, to being picky about what we put IN our bodies, we may be falling down in the area of what we put ON our bodies.

Specifically, makeup.

Some women use makeup sparingly. Others don’t use it at all. Then there’s the gal who paints it on so thick, marauding mosquitoes would ultimately fail to find skin to penetrate.

Beauty has as many definitions, as there are individuals. However, beyond the vanity—or lack thereof—that serves as the foundation for makeup use, are the questions about what’s in the stuff.

A Canadian advocacy group known as Environmental Defense (ED) wondered just that. ED tested 49 common items used as makeup in search for the presence and levels of eight heavy metals, including lead and arsenic.

The result? All 49 products tested contained an average of four of the eight metals they were looking for. That’s the average: some had more, others less. But all products were found to contain at least two.

It’s not that manufacturers are deliberately putting heavy metals into makeup. What appears to be happening, however, is that impurities naturally occurring in the basic ingredients used in producing various forms of makeup are finding their way into the finished product.

The tested products were found, overall, to contain trace amounts of heavy metals that fell well below the impurity limits proposed by Health Canada.

But not all…

One of the lip glosses tested contained 110 parts-per-million (ppm) of lead, well above the 10 ppm limit proposed by Health Canada. The same lip gloss also was found to contain 70 ppm of arsenic, compared with a proposed limit of 3 ppm deemed safe for use.

Doctors and health care advocates claim that such high levels of heavy metals could be vastly reduced if manufacturers were motivated.

So, what would motivate them? Defective product lawsuits? What’s the long-term impact of makeup use? And what about those who habitually apply their foundation with a trowel? What is such exposure doing to them?

Does anyone look at the labels, to see what’s in this stuff? Are the labels even up-to-date?

Where is your makeup made? China? The latter republic has a reputation for putting lead into your kid’s toys. Is it in your makeup, too?

Those who never give their makeup a passing thought, need to hear the story of actor Buddy Ebsen, who was the original Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (shown above in picture).

Ebsen, a young song-and-dance man at the time, assumed the role of the Tin Man after switching places with Ray Bolger—who had originally been cast as the Tin Man but was moved to the role of the Scarecrow instead.

Ebsen recorded the soundtrack and rehearsed all the scenes before filming started in full costume. Strangely, the young and energetic Ebsen began experiencing cramps and shortness of breath, and he was hospitalized.

It was determined that the cause of his illness was the aluminum dust used in his silver make-up. Inhaling the dust into his lungs caused the problem, and he was never able to go back to the role. His replacement, Jack Haley, went on to fame as the beloved Tin Man in the iconic movie—but only after producers switched to a paste makeup so the actor  wouldn’t inhale the aluminum dust, as Ebsen had done.

Ebsen would later say that he suffered from lung issues the rest of his life, following his allergic reaction to inhaling aluminum dust when he was in his twenties.

So…what’s in your makeup? Is it safe? Or is it harming you over the long-term? What are the manufacturers doing about it? What’s their responsibility?

Food for thought, the next time you’re putting on your face…

Tags: Arsenic, Cosmectics, Cosmetic Ingredients, Lead, Lip Gloss, Makeup

This was posted on Monday, August 8th, 2011 at 9:21 am and is filed under Emerging Issues . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.