the 07/23/2008

Poison kiss: lead alert

Women are being warned about using some lipsticks after concernswere raised several big-name brands could contain lead.

The warnings come in the wake of last week's ruling that a classaction in the United States against luxury goods giant LVMH - themanufacturer of Dior Addict Positive Red lipstick, which has beenfound to contain lead - could proceed.

The blood-red Dior lipstick, sold at beauty counters acrossAustralia, was among dozens of lipsticks found to contain lead,after US lobby group Campaign for Safe Cosmetics commissioned anindependent laboratory to test lead levels in 33 brand-namelipsticks.

The results, made public in a report last October, revealed61percent of the lipsticks tested had detectable lead levels.One-third of the lipsticks exceeded the US Food and DrugAdministration's accepted level of lead (0.1 parts per million) forproducts that are ingested. The Dior lipstick was found to contain0.21ppm of lead.

In Australia it is mandatory for cosmetics to list all ingredientson their labels and for cosmetics containing lead to carry warningstatements and safety directions.

Cosmetics containing more than 250 milligrams per kilogram of leadare prohibited unless permission is granted by the Minister forJustice and Customs. The Dior lipstick does not list lead as aningredient or carry a warning.

Peter Dingle, an environmental toxicologist from Murdoch Universityand author of the Dangerous Beauty booklet, has called for regulatory change to ban lead fromcosmetic 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 outof everything and here we are putting it in lipstick. It's crazy."

Mr Dingle says companies which claim the levels of lead in theirproducts are too low to cause harm are talking nonsense.

"We've known for 200 years that lead is toxic and the research nowis showing that lead, even at the absolute lowest concentration,still has a toxic effect on our body … not to mention thecumulative effect it could have."

Exposure to lead can result in intellectual and behaviouralproblems and has also been linked to kidney damage, infertility andmiscarriage, among other adverse health affects. It has beenestimated that the average woman ingests about 4.5kilograms oflipstick in a lifetime.

The Government's industrial chemical watchdog, the NationalIndustrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme said, in astatement on Friday, it was aware of "ongoing concerns about thepresence of lead in cosmetics" but said investigations to date hadnot identified any cosmetic products containing lead, besides knownuses as hair colourants.

It would not confirm whether it would investigate the claims beingmade that the Dior Addict Positive Red lipstick contains unsafelevels of lead.