Watch out for lead in your lipstick

We often watch out for what our family members eat these days because of the countless substances that have been reported to have contaminated much of what we consume. I had the chance to ask my friend, chemist Pinky Tobiano of Qualibet Testing Services Inc., about other substances we should watch out for. She specifically mentioned lead. According to Pinky, lead exposure is very dangerous to one’s health, most especially to younger children and pregnant women because lead easily crosses the placenta and enters the fetal brain where it can interfere with normal development. She adds that a study reveals that lead has also been linked to infertility and miscarriage. Aside from that, lead does not break down in the body, but rather accumulates over time. It can increase aggression, cause anemia, seizures, and brain damage, as well as damage to the kidneys. Both male and female fertility is affected by lead, and it has even been linked to a delay in the onset of puberty.

Women normally apply and re-apply their lipstick several times a day, which means that they must be careful in choosing the kind of lipstick they use. If their lipstick contains lead, it is ingested by the body as wearing it means eating it as well.  

Here’s how to test for lead content in your lipstick:          

• Rub a small amount of lipstick across a part of open skin, preferably your hand.

• Wipe a gold ring (or any jewelry made of gold) on it.    

Note: This claim appears to be drawn from an old alchemist’s trick of testing the purity of gold by rubbing ore on a dark stone (often containing lead) and comparing the streak with another of known quality. However, the process does not work in reverse. Even if it did, there would not be a large enough concentration of lead in a strip of lipstick to produce a visible change.         

• Real, reliable detection of lead in a product requires rigorous scientific testing, and cannot be achieved “on the cheap using normal household products.”

Wait for about a minute or two. If the color turns black, then immediately throw the lipstick away. The lipsticks that you want to test are old ones, they don’t make lipstick with lead anymore, but many from years past can be very dangerous.

• If there is no color change, then your lipstick is fine. This part is very important, you must check your other lipsticks and follow this process again. If you have any lipsticks from five years and older, throw them out! Even if they do not have lead, they may have bacteria, which is common with old makeup, including lipstick, eyeshadow, and particularly mascara.

Now that we have these guidelines for safety in our lipstick, I urge you to try them out.  It’s better to be safe than sorry.

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E-mail author at mommymaricel@gmail.com.