Women are being warned about using some lipsticks after concerns
were raised several big-name brands could contain lead.
The warnings come in the wake of last week's ruling that a class
action in the United States against luxury goods giant LVMH - the
manufacturer of Dior Addict Positive Red lipstick, which has been
found to contain lead - could proceed.
The blood-red Dior lipstick, sold at beauty counters across
Australia, was among dozens of lipsticks found to contain lead,
after US lobby group Campaign for Safe Cosmetics commissioned an
independent laboratory to test lead levels in 33 brand-name
lipsticks.
The results, made public in a report last October, revealed
61percent of the lipsticks tested had detectable lead levels.
One-third of the lipsticks exceeded the US Food and Drug
Administration's accepted level of lead (0.1 parts per million) for
products that are ingested. The Dior lipstick was found to contain
0.21ppm of lead.
In Australia it is mandatory for cosmetics to list all
ingredients on their labels and for cosmetics containing lead to
carry warning statements and safety directions.
Cosmetics containing more than 250 milligrams per kilogram of
lead are prohibited unless permission is granted by the Minister
for Justice and Customs. The Dior lipstick does not list lead as an
ingredient or carry a warning.
Peter Dingle, an environmental toxicologist from Murdoch
University and author of the Dangerous Beauty booklet, has
called for regulatory change to ban lead from cosmetic products to
protect consumer health.
"It is ridiculous that we have any lead in our cosmetics at
all," he said. "For the last 50 years we have campaigned to get
lead out of everything and here we are putting it in lipstick. It's
crazy."
Mr Dingle says companies which claim the levels of lead in their
products are too low to cause harm are talking nonsense.
"We've known for 200 years that lead is toxic and the research
now is showing that lead, even at the absolute lowest
concentration, still has a toxic effect on our body … not to
mention the cumulative effect it could have."
Exposure to lead can result in intellectual and behavioural
problems and has also been linked to kidney damage, infertility and
miscarriage, among other adverse health affects. It has been
estimated that the average woman ingests about 4.5kilograms of
lipstick in a lifetime.
The Government's industrial chemical watchdog, the National
Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme said, in a
statement on Friday, it was aware of "ongoing concerns about the
presence of lead in cosmetics" but said investigations to date had
not identified any cosmetic products containing lead, besides known
uses as hair colourants.
It would not confirm whether it would investigate the claims
being made that the Dior Addict Positive Red lipstick contains
unsafe levels of lead.
Rachel Wells