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Switch to a natural lipstick

Why This is Green

While it’s an urban myth that women eat six pounds of lipstick in their lifetime, we clearly do eat some. By choosing one made with plant-derived ingredients, you’ll be swallowing natural substances instead of questionable chemicals that may be harming your health.

Lipstick formulations vary, but generally speaking conventional versions are filled with controversial ingredients that have been linked to everything from cancers to hormone disruption to birth defects to skin or eye irritation. These include parabens, fragrance, dyes, acids, and many petroleum-derived ingredients. If you can read the tiny print on a lipstick tube, you can avoid the worst of these. Natural products don’t tend to have them.

Unfortunately not all ingredients are easy to avoid. Take lead, a proven neurotoxin found in some cosmetic ingredients but not listed on labels. In 2007, The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics tested 33 popular brands of lipsticks at an independent lab for lead content. 61 percent contained varying levels of lead. The highest levels were found in lipsticks from brands like Cover Girl, L'Oreal, Maybelline, and Revlon. Even lipsticks made with organic ingredients can also contain lead; it’s naturally occurring. There is no safe level of lead exposure. The pregnant and the young are particularly vulnerable.

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How To

Check your lipstick on the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Cosmetics Database or the GoodGuide. If it turns out to be too risky to wear, replace it with one that scores better and contains natural, organic, or biodynamic ingredients.

Alternately, dare to go bare.