Ancient Egyptians Used to call it the kiss of death, the suave British used to name it devil's work. Iran bans use of lipstick among its women, yet lipstick and lipgloss have become part of the daily routine of women in day-to-day life.
Ahmedabad-based Consumer Education and Research Society has come up with a disturbing study on the lead content in popular lipstick brands, which should make women think twice before using a popular brand lipstick or lipgloss. These may act as slow poison, though looking innocuous with colour, oil and wax.
The interesting finding was that luscious reds were less poisonous than the sober browns and the lesser priced lipsticks had less lead than the premium brands.
46 lipsticks and 3 lipgloss belonging to 19 popular brands were taken up by CERC for its study at its own testing lab. It was found that most of the lipstick and lipgloss had toxic lead content more than the permissible limit. There was upto 25 ppm (parts per million) lead content in lipsticks and upto 12 ppm in lipgloss.
Bureau of Indian Stands has put the maximum permissible limit of 20 ppm for lipsticks and 10 ppm for lipgloss.
The CERC study covered popular brands like Lakme, Ivovi, Revlon, Maybelline and L'Oreal along with low-cost brands.
The lipsticks costing Rs 10 had lead content ranging from 2 particles per million (ppm) to 17 ppm. The lipsticks priced over Rs 100 had 11 ppm to 23 ppm of lead.
Of the varieties tested, Ivovi 10 (brown) revealed 25 parts per million (ppm) and Lakme D414 (red) 23 ppm which are higher than the permissible limit of 20 ppm by Bureau of Indian Standard.
Thirty other varieties had a lead level higher than 10 ppm. In the 16 varieties of brown lipsticks tested, the lead content ranged from 7 ppm to 25 ppm and 20 varieties of red shades tested had lead levels from 4 ppm to 23 ppm. Maybelline 09 Water Shine Liquid Diamond lipgloss had the highest among lipglosses at 12 ppm.
“There is no safe lead exposure for humans. Lead is a neurotoxin causing learning, language and behavioural problems. Exposure to lead also develops infertility and miscarriage. Pregnant women and young children are particularly vulnerable to lead exposure,” the report says.
How is the test conducted?
0.2 gm test sample is put in a pressure vessel, in which 8 ml HNO3 and 2 ml H2O2 are mixed. All 12 pressure vessels are put inside a microwave oven. Under fixed temperature, time and pressure levels, the carbonic portion is destroyed and heavy metals solution come to surface. The pressure vessels are cooled and the collected samples are checked for lead content with the help of a spectrometer.
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