Lead & Lipstick – Know the whole story

Lead has been on the public’s figurative lips for dangerous heavy metal exposure for literally thousands of years. Hippocrates documented his belief that is was killing slaves in ancient Greece, yet it wasn’t until the late 1970s that we finally legislated that it could no longer be used in paints and the media outcry began at the commonality of its use in consumer products. 

 One that earns a role on our literal lips; lipstick! Lead, which is used to intensify red colors, has been a staple in the composition of makeup and has received a good deal of attention from the fear mongering campaign.

Lead itself interferes with multiple biological systems from circulatory to gastrointestinal, and from nervous to reproductive. Early symptoms include abdominal pain, confusion, anemia, irritability and can lead to developmental disorders (in children), seizures, coma and eventually death.

But OMG, how cute is that color? 

Regulations state that color additives for cosmetics are allowed to contain 20 µg lead/g. this is then diluted further into the finally product, but testing discovered an average of .36-.39 µg. These numbers are meaningless without the understanding of what levels of lead does, but most people hear lead and jump to the idea that these are deadly levels. NIOSH estimates that there are 3 million workers exposed to these dangers every day in industry in America alone. This number does not include children exposed to lead based products at home or the commonality of lead levels in soil and water supplies. Workers are legally allowed to be exposed to 3.84 ug/kg a day. Using that number as a base, it is not at all frightening that someone could ingest about 0.0000003 ug/kg a day in their lipstick or even 0.08 ug/kg of lead in 8 cups of tap water.

In English this means:

Girl with the bright red lips = Will be fine. 

Guy in the hard hat in Canadian work site = danger-ish 

Guy without the safety precautions of Canada (let’s call it ‘Shina’) = Probably going to die

We like to overemphasis the things that can catch the eye, more than the really threats. WE are lucky in Canada that regulation do exist to keep us from extreme danger, but knowing the risks on work sites and in day to day life involve evaluation and understanding. Complacency is never the answer. There are groups dedicated to exposing the realities of chemicals and metals in consumer goods and making sure the consumer is aware of them too. We can make all these products without the possible risk of poisoning.