Lead in Your Lipstick

I've read a couple of articles recently about the chemicals in lipsticks, and one ingredient that keeps coming up is lead. Lead is a known neurotoxin, used in lipsticks to give red dyes their hue. Last year the FDA did a survey and reported levels as high as 7 ppm (parts per million) in a number of lipstick brands, and what is the legal limit for candy? 0.1 ppm!

Here are the top 20 lead-containing lipsticks from the FDA 2012 study:

Yes, I'm sad to see that there is a Burt's Bees lip shimmer in there. Unfortunately lead won't be listed on the ingredients label but if you go to safecosmetics.org/ you can see the lead levels from the FDA report. For those who aren't ready to give up their lipstick Wet n' Wild, Bobbi Brown and Shiseido had lead levels less than 1 ppm.