As a beauty product enthusiast (one might also say “hoarder,” if one were being less kind), lipstick is one of my very favorite things. At any given moment I have a bare minimum of 5 tubes rattling around in my handbag… and another 500 at home. When I buy a new one, (which I do, often) I consider the color, the texture, the packaging, the longevity of the formula, and sometimes, let’s be honest, just how luxurious it looks and feels. What I am definitely not thinking about, however, is what goes into it.
I was momentarily dismayed last year by a number of studies conducted by the FDA that found significant amounts of lead in at least 400 formulas, but it mostly applied to drugstore brands, with a few exceptions. I thought, because the lipsticks I buy generally cost upward of $20, they must be lovingly crafted with safe, healthy ingredients in Narnia by cuddly dexterous animals wearing vests. Ignorance is bliss, babes, and there was no substantial evidence to say otherwise. But my warped logic has been compromised: “Good Morning America” tested 22 types of lipstick and found that a serious majority ― over 55% ― contained traceable amounts of lead, regardless of the color, brand, or manufacturing origin.
Source: blissmaybe777
Still, I’m not going to surrender my Guerlain Rouge Automatique in favor of Burt’s Bees just yet (and, by the way, a Burt’s Bees gloss actually slated near the top of the FDA’s list for contamination): the FDA assures us that trace amounts of lead in lipstick, the levels of which have actually dropped in the past year, cannot harm you. You aren’t eating that shit straight out of the tube, are you? I hope not. But if these statistics are freaking you out nonetheless, you can count on brands like Tarte, ILIA Beauty, Jane Iredale, and Vapour Beauty for completely clean, lead-free alternatives to what you might otherwise pick up at the drugstore. [Jezebel]
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