Regarding Lipstick and Lead

martygreene · 08-28-2005, 09:53 PM #1 (**permalink**)

There is an email that is going around, and is being posted on message boards and forums, regarding lead and lipstick. There are many forms of the message, but it is basically this:

Quote:

Even lipstick isn't safe anymore...what's next? Brands don't mean everything. Recently a brand called "Red Earth" decreased their prices from $67 to $9.90. It contained lead. Lead is a chemical which causes cancer. The Brands which contain lead are:

1. CHRISTIAN DIOR

2. LANCOM

3. CLINIQUE

4. Y.S.L

5. ESTEE LAUDER

6. SHISEIDO

7. RED EARTH (Lip Gloss)

8. CHANEL (Lip Conditioner)

9. MARKET AMERICA-MOTNES LIPSTICK.

The higher the lead content, the greater the chance of causing cancer. After doing a test on lipsticks, it was found that the Y.S.L. lipstick contained the most amount of lead. Watch out for those lipsticks which are supposed to stay longer. If your lipstick stays longer, it is because of the higher content of lead. Here is the test you can do yourself:

1.Put some lipstick on your hand. 2. Use a Gold ring to scratch on the lipstick. 3. If the lipstick color changes to black then you know the lipstick contains lead.

THIS IS NOT TRUE

What was first fishy about this to me was:

The legislation requiring the removal of lead from ALL consumer products, including pulling off the shelves products containing lead and lead compounts, took effect in 1972
There is no known chemical reaction between lead and gold according to any of my chemistry texts, my father (a chemist for PPG Industries), or two of my graduate level chemistry student friends
There is no chemical property of lead that would cause lipsticks to be longwearing
The primary application of lead in cosmetics historically is whiting aka white lead, used in theatrical cosmetics. Reds were created with mercuric compounds
The only black lead is lead sulfide, which has nothing to do with gold whatsoever
Gold is a very non-reactive material
This came via an email

I did a bit of research, and found that this was indeed a myth. For more information on the dubunking of this myth read here: http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/lipstick.html
and here: http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=6338
and here: http://www.snopes.com/toxins/lipstick.asp

kalikutes · 10-12-2007, 08:01 AM #2 (**permalink**)

there is a story on yahoo this morning reguarding this apprently its somewhat true. there is lead in them just not as much as you would think.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071011/...pstick_lead_dc