Being that all of us are involved in real estate, we understand the hazards of lead. I thought this article was interesting being that it talks about lead and it helps us to realize that lead is still out there!
A recent federal analysis showing that 400 shades of popular lipstick contained trace amounts of lead has exacerbated an ongoing dispute between regulators and consumer activists over how much lead is safe in cosmetics.
Five lipsticks made by L’Oreal and Maybelline, owned by L’Oreal USA, ranked among the top 10 most contaminated of the cosmetics, according to testing by the Food and Drug Administration. Two Cover Girl and two NARS lipsticks also landed in the top 10, as did one made by Stargazer.
For years, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has been pushing the government to set limits for lead levels in lipstick. The FDA has resisted, insisting that the amounts detected in various rounds of testing do not pose safety risks. But in a letter to the agency this month, the consumer group said that federal regulators have no scientific basis for this conclusion and it pressed the government to take action.
Reports of lead in lipstick date to the 1990s, and have resurfaced periodically since then. In 2007, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics tested 33 red lipsticks and found that two-thirds of them contained lead — and that one-third exceeded the FDA’s limit for lead in candy. The FDA followed up in 2008 with its own tests on 20 lipsticks and expanded its analysis to include 400 lipstick shades in the most recent study.
But the agency, which posted its latest findings on its Web site in December, said that comparing lipstick to candy is unfair.
“It is not scientifically valid to equate the risk to consumers presented by lead levels in candy, a product intended for ingestion, with that associated with lead levels in lipstick, a product intended for topical use and ingested in much smaller quantities than candy,” the FDA said in its online comments.
The Personal Care Products Council, a trade group that represents the cosmetics industry, agreed with the FDA’s assessment.
Halyna Breslawec, the council’s chief scientist, said her group has petitioned the agency to limit the amount of lead allowed in cosmetics. The consensus on what that limit should be — 10 parts per million, Breslawec said — is higher than the levels detected by the two rounds of FDA testing and is in line with proposals in Canada and Germany.
The FDA is evaluating whether it should recommend an upper limit.
Breslawec said that lead is not intentionally put in lipstick or any other cosmetic but that many color additives approved by the FDA are mineral-based and therefore contain trace levels of lead that is naturally found in soil, water and air.
But determining the true safety level for lead in cosmetics remains the stumbling block. The FDA’s most recent analysis found the highest lead concentration — 7.19 parts per million — in Maybelline’s Color Sensational Pink Petal lipstick. But the average lead contamination in the 400 lipsticks it tested last year was 1.11 parts per million, very close to the average from the agency’s 2008 analysis.
If you want to learn more about your lipstick go to this site and it contains a list of products that may contain lead! I think that it is always good to be on the safe side and check to see if what you are wearing could be unhealthy. Hope this article opens some eyes to the fact that not everything you buy in a store contains what it says it does and may not be as healthy as you suspect!
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