Wanting those glamorous, luscious lips?  Well, you might want to rethink your favorite brand of lipstick because with each swipe you are also getting a dose of harmful chemicals and toxins.

This Valentine’s day I thought it would be fun to shake it up a bit and instead of giving you a delicious, sugary treat, teach you how to treat your lips!  Because we ALL, including our lips deserve the best, right?!

Yes, the chemicals and toxins used to make lipstick pliable, colorful and long lasting do work, but they come at a price on your health.  Thankfully there are safer solutions using better beauty ingredients!

Let’s break it down on what toxic ingredients are hiding in your lipstick!

4 Toxic Ingredients Hiding in Your Lipstick

Lead

Over 95% of popular lipstick brands contained lead according to this study.  NO amount of lead is safe for humans.  Lead is a powerful neurotoxin that we expose ourselves and those we kiss!  Watching your little girls playing dress up with your makeup may seem cute but can be very harmful to their development and brains.  Lead can also disrupt fertility in both males and females and cause other hormone issues in both teens and adults.

Lead in lipstick is particularly concerning because it is on our lips and can enter our bodies through our mouths that much easier.  In fact is is estimated that women apply lipstick 2-14 times per day and consume on average 7 pounds of lipstick in a lifetime!

Heavy Metals

Lead is not the only heavy metal to be concerned about with lipstick and lip glosses—chromium, arsenic, cadmium, aluminum, mercury and others are also found in common lip products in unsafe amounts.  Heavy metals can build up in our body and potentially lead to cancer, neurological dysfunction, heart conditions, fertility issues and liver and kidney damage.

When it comes to heavy metals and cosmetics, it is very important that the cosmetics are batch tested because heavy metal content can very greatly depending on sourcing, location and timing, which is why I love that Beautycounter batch tests all products.

Petroleum Based Waxes and Oils

This is a sneaky one because petroleum based ingredients sneak their way into may cosmetics and lipsticks often disguised as mineral oil, paraffin, toluene or coal tar.  Yes, what you are putting on your face is the same substance as your car oil, yuck!

Petroleum can’t be metabolized by the body, so it just sticks around for a long time!  It is also linked to estrogen dominance and hormone dysfunction as well as labeled a potential carcinogen.

Colorants and Dyes

While I firmly believe that colorants and food dyes should not be used in food, drinks and everyday skincare products like lotions and body wash, when it comes to color cosmetics, some tint and color is needed to create products that actually perform.  

Beautycounter who is leading the industry in making safer product available states, “We only use the amount of colorants necessary to impart the color people seek in high-performing products and no more.”

Sadly, completely natural colorants like minerals (yes, even those can be very harmful: natural does not always equal safer), vegetable and fruit powders or crushed rose petals simply don’t create makeup that performs all day and feels fabulous when you wear it.  To create safer color cosmetics that perform, some small quantities of both natural and synthetic colorants are needed, but again the quantity used really makes a difference!

My favorite safer lipstick

I absolutely love Beautycounter’s lip sheer and you will always find them stashed away in my pockets and purses, because yes, they really are that amazing! I have NEVER been a lipstick or lip gloss fan until trying this lip sheer.  I love that it moisturizes your lips while you wear it with ingredients like jojoba and castor oil so your lips feel glamorous and conditioned all at the same time!  

My favorite lip sheer colors are Twig and Plum.