14 Responses to “Is Lancome Lipstick Loaded With Lead?”

1. Karen Says:

   Now that’s a relief! So I WON’T have to throw out all my two gallon size Ziploc bags, filled with lipsticks I no longer use but can’t quite part with, after all!

   Snopes.com is a great website to check on the authenticity of crazy e-mails that might possibly be urban legends. This one is definitely there.

2. Discuss Beauty Says:

   I started to panic a little bit myself when I read that, LOL!
   I think I let out a sigh of relief now, LOL!

3. Becka Says:

   Karen, you might want to throw out some of them anyways…they do expire…sadly makeup doesn’t keep forever

4. melissa Says:

   Thank You so much for this post. I work for one of the companies listed and have heard this question too many times since this story first started making its rounds on the internet. The first time it was asked, I googled and found an article debunking it. After that I would look people in the eye and say “yes of course there is, we want you to get sick and die, because dead or sick women spend lots of money at cosmetic counters!” Or “If this were true I would have been dead years ago because I have literally worn pounds of it over my lifetime.” But then I would stop being fresh and share the article that I found, now thanks to you I have another site to send them to to find real sound reliable information. The lesson is just because its on the internet does not make it true. If it were al true we would be living in big plastic bubbles trying to protect ourselves from petrolatum, parabens, underarm deoderant, air, food, ect. ect….Another good website is Quackwatch. Thanks again for the voice of reason.

5. Your lipgloss may be poppin’, but how ’bout your lipstick? The truth about lead…. « BeautyBlitz Says:

   [...] bloggers have addressed this subject. Take a look at what has been said on We Love Beauty and thebeautybrains. Both sites claim the report is bogus and that the report basically has the credibility of urban [...]

6. Kate Says:

   This website is a joke. There are reports that lipstick contains lead, but all of you sit back and sigh of relief because, oh there is nothing wrong with lead. Lead! Yes there are plenty of other ways to get exposed to lead out there but how many times do you reapply lipstick. If you use it everyday over the course of a lifetime that exposure builds up. The scientists of this website support the cosmetics industry, of course their not going to advocate you stop using cosmetics. You should all advocate that new standards be set for ingredients in cosmetics so that we can all feel safer. Yes, of course you could live in a bubble but maybe by advocating change we could all live longer healthier lives.

7. karen Says:

   I need an answer…I took the ring test with several tubes of lipstick, some turned black and some didn’t. Clearly there was no build up of oxidation because I was using the same ring and cleaning it everytime. Then I thought about all the eyeshadow, and again the same thing some turned black and some didn’t. So what is that? I really don’t want to be using products on my face that contain lead. Can an authority please tell us why some turn black and some don’t?

8. Left Brain Says:

   Karen,

   Did you read the post? The ring test is bogus. Gold doesn’t react with lead like that. If you are really still frightened to use perfectly good cosmetics, then stop using them. Nature created you without make-up. If the thought of exposing yourself to chemicals is too scary, stop using them. But know that people have safely used cosmetics for years without problems.

   Kate,

   You just read it here. If you are afraid of using cosmetics, STOP USING THEM!! You don’t need them to be healthy and if it is too scary for you, just quit using.

   It would be great to remove all possible toxins from cosmetics, beverages and food. But it’s not. There are safe levels of carcinogenic ingredients. Did you know your own body produces cancer-causing formaldehyde? Should we all have our livers removed to prevent that?

9. Lead in Lipstick Says:

   First, kids dying from lead in toys. Now, they find high levels of lead in lipsticks. What’s next – lead in food? Are women going to start dying now too from using lipstick too much?

   Freaky!

   There’s a detailed report about it at http://www.myproductalert.com/lead-in-lipsticks.html

10. The Beauty Brains » Blog Archive » No More Mercury in Mascara in Minnesota Says:

    [...] month’s scare chemical was lead in your lipstick. This month, it’s mercury in your mascara. Lawmakers in the great state of Minnesota banned [...]

11. Deadly Beauty: The Secrets of Cosmetics Past | The Beauty Brains Says:

    [...] chemicals in cosmetic products. The Brains have responded to alarm more than once over mercury and lead finding their way into mascara and lipstick. Did you know both were once lauded as beauty-promoting [...]

12. Deadly Beauty: The Secrets of Cosmetics Past | Beauty Secrets Blog Says:

    [...] chemicals in cosmetic products. The Brains have responded to alarm more than once over mercury and lead finding their way into mascara and lipstick. Did you know both were once lauded as beauty-promoting [...]

13. Elice Says:

    I agree with what Kate has to say. And the whole point of investigating whether cosmetics are harmful or not is because people -want- to use cosmetics. But if they contain toxic or unhealthy ingredients, then something should be done. As for your post, it doesn’t seem to be entirely valid. Your claim of the ‘rigorous’ testing is misleading. The cosmetics industry is unregulated by the FDA. Instead, the companies regulate themselves and simply report. That is a lot of room for loopholes and shoulder shrugging.

14. DLYNN Says:

    The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics points out that while the colors may be FDA regulated the finished products are not. Nobody is testing these products for any hazardous contaminants whatsoever. Meanwhile, lead has been outlawed in such products oversees for years, some countries dating back to the 1920s. And we wonder why the US is the autism capital of the world? Not that there is any proven link here, but lead certainly doesn’t help. A Canadian health study found an even greater percentage of lead contaminated lipsticks than the random testing performed by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics here in the US. In one case 6.3ppm! Now does it spell c-o-n-f-l-i-c-t of interest here when one learns that the Canadian health authorities refused to release the names of the companies?

    Furthermore, the Beauty Brains rebuttal to this “urban legend” neglects to mention that those FDA colorings are not the only ingredients in lipsticks. Colorings can come from mining processes too, and those ores and minerals may be contaminated! There’s no regulatory oversight of those.

    The only people who suffer the effects of lead are women and children. Lead has been tied to miscarriages, lower IQ, learning disabilities and behavioral problems. Long before I learned that lead is NOT outlawed in US cosmetics, I read about a US prison study in which the blood levels of lead were found to be abnormally high in those who had a criminal history of violence. And what is America if not the capital of high incarceration rates too? Meanwhile, the US currently ranks something like 20 on the list of world’s most literate nations. We used to rank in the top 5!

    With more women in the workforce, more women are wearing lipstick. And since lead builds up in the body and is not shed, and since women tend to be older when they have their first child compared to 100 years ago, it stands to reason that while the overall level of lead in lipsticks and cosmetics may be low, the cumulative exposure from this and other sources may not be. Women who unknowingly wear lead-tainted lipsticks put their unborn children at risk, and teenage girls reintroduce that risk 12-14 years after birth.

    If we’re going to care about “cruelty free cosmetics”, why not care about *pure* cosmetics? Why not care about eliminating one small part of the many things that pose a risk to our health. If the cosmetic industry has nothing to hide, they surely won’t reject this idea. In fact, a smart cosmetic company could even market their products for being cruelty AND lead free, if they so desired. Yet they don’t. To the contrary, when the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics broke the news in 2007 that lead was detected in US-made lipsticks, the cosmetic industry rallied to defeat a bill in California that would have included cosmetics as part of the Proposition 13 lead disclosures. In California, shoppers cannot even enter an isle of dinnerware, crystal or pottery — let alone an eating establishment — without a posted notice stating that lead may be harmful to pregnant women and may pose a cancer risk. So contrary to being an Urban Legend, Beauty Brains is contributing to the confusion by stating that lead does not pose a cancer risk!

    For crying out loud: We’ve taken lead out of house paint. We’ve taken lead out of gasoline. But we can’t take it out of women’s bodies?

    Women. We have to respect ourselves more than that. And a smart cosmetic industry will capitalize on this notion — not spend millions lobbying the US and Canadian authorities to sweep it under the rug. Anyone who tells you that you shouldn’t “ask” and you shouldn’t “tell” is probably a shill for the cosmetics industry.

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