Red alert: Lead found in red shades of lipstick

SYDNEY - Warning for women: Your favourite red lipsticks that make you look attractive, composed, sexy and ready for the world, may in fact be causing you more harm than good.

Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration conducted tests on 22 red lipsticks and found lead, a neurotoxin, in every single lipstick sample studied.

The highest levels were in three well-known and common brands: over Girl, Revlon, L’Oreal.

While the FDA is continuing lead research on additional cosmetic brands and colours, it is reassuring consumers that the lead levels it found in the red lipsticks are very small and not a health threat.

The FDA does not regulate lead in finished cosmetics, only in colours added to the products.

None of the products exceeded the 20 parts per million limit on colours, the agency said.

An industry trade group, the Personal Care Products Council, said manufacturers did not add lead intentionally.

“Because lead is found naturally in air, water, and soil, it may also be found at extremely low levels as a trace contaminant in the raw ingredients used in formulating cosmetics, just as it is in many thousands of other products,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted the group as stating.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is, however, not convinced.

It is calling on the FDA to require cosmetics manufacturers to reduce lead to the lowest achievable levels. (ANI)