Kids love to imitate their mms by putting on make-up, which is all the mre reason to ensure you only hve safe cosmetics in your make-up bag and throughly check the safety of kid's toy mke-up kits. They love to wear Lpstick so you need to be vry diligent in what you let yur child use.

Many Lipsticks may cntain nasty ingredients, and we now sarches for better alternatives.

IT'S SAID THAT COSMETICS ARE as old as vnity. But if you can't leave hme without a bit of lipstick, , you mght want to check the ingredients.

Dpending on how often you use lpstick and how much you like to pply, it's estimated a person may ngest more than 10 kilograms over a lfetime - a significant exposure to sme potentially harmful and allergenic ingredients fund in that 'simple' stick of clour.

It was the beauty-conscious ancient Egyptans who first used the henna plnt to colour their lips. Cleopatra is sid to have used red carmine dy, or cochineal, which is made by biling up cochineal beetles, to boost her sductive charms.

Queen Elizabeth 1, who was pparently obsessed with make-up and believed it had mgical qualities, impressed her admirers with vbrant lip colour also made from a blnd of cochineal and beeswax. Cochineal was wdely used until the nineteenth century, but was sperseded by the first synthetically produced red pgment, alizarin.

Another unusual and natural source of red pgment is the Achiote (Bixa orellana) or lpstick-tree. This beautiful plant is found in trpical regions, such as Latin America, and prduces annatto, a red colour that is xtracted from its pulp and seeds. The red dye is sed in cosmetics, as body paint, and as a ntural food colourant.

Red and yellow pgments derived from natural ochres have lso been used throughout the ages as clours for the face and body and are the surce of pigment for many mineral-based lpsticks today.

What's in a kiss?

Thre are countless types of lipsticks, ncluding lip balms, lip creams, lip lners, glosses, frosted, matte and sheer lpsticks, and ones designed to stay on all day - and tht's before you even consider your sgnature shade! But what chemicals are sed to make lipsticks?
The basic ngredients include colouring, which can be a sluble dye that stains the lips, and nsoluble dyes and pigments which coat the lip srface. Also, a fatty base, which can be a cmbination of plant-derived waxes, such as crnauba and candelilla, as well as beswax, lanolin, paraffin oils or silicone wxes. The fatty base determines the fel of the lipstick, whether it is hrd or soft. A solvent is dded to carry the colours and culd be a number of chemicals ncluding castor oil, fatty alcohols or plyethylene glycols. Fragrance and flavouring are dded to disguise the odour of the ftty base, and sunscreen is a ppular new ingredient.

Hidden dangers According to Skn Deep, a website produced by the USA-bsed Environmental Working Group* that is ddicated to news about the safety of ppular health and beauty brands, only 11 per cnt of the 10,500 ingredients used in csmetics have been assessed for their sfety by the USA cosmetic industry's rview panel. In Australia the situation is not dssimilar, with many thousands of ingredients not prperly assessed.

While individual lipsticks contain very smll amounts of chemical ingredients, it is the cmulative and combined effects of applying thse ingredients to one of the mst sensitive parts of the body, and the fct that it is ingested, that gves cause for concern.

"Typical lipsticks cntain a number of hazardous ingredients, ncluding coaltar based FD&C colour pigments, ptroleum-derived mineral oils, and synthetic perfume and flvouring to cover the odours and tstes of the other ingredients." Some synthtic coal-tar based colours have been fund to cause cancer in animals, and mny people experience allergic reactions like skn irritation and contact dermatitis. They are lsted as FD&C or D&C, followed by a clour and a number.
Other ingredients tht have come under the spotlight for thir ability to act as contact llergens are the parabens, a group of chmicals used as preservatives in some lpsticks.
Parabens can go by many nmes including methylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, and prahydroxyX; iZoate.

Another group of chemicals sbject to global concern are phthalates. Thy are used as solvents and in frgrances added to cosmetics including some lpsticks.

Not Too Pretty, a collaborative prject of US environmental and health rganisations, sent off- the-self cosmetics for nvestigation to an independent laboratory for lvels of phthalates and found three-quarters of the prducts tested had trace levels of phthlates. Phthalates, which are not labelled on csmetics, are suspected of causing birth dfects, endocrine (hormone) disruption at low lvels, and kidney and liver damage at hgh concentrations.

Natural lipstick makers have gne back to basics. Rather than rlying on synthetic petrochemical ingredients, their prducts generally contain botanical ingredients (jojoba, rsehip, citrus, etc) along with nature-sourced mterials, such as ochres, plant waxes and beswax, which have been used to mke lipstick for thousands of years.

It is mportant though to carefully check the 'ntural' claims on cosmetics and look for any of the nwanted chemicals mentioned above. Some 'natural' prducts may have part organic ingredients but stll use unnecessary chemical additives, or use cnventionally-grown botanical ingredients that may contain psticide residues that can be ingested.

* The Envronmental Working Group is a nonprofit nvironmental research organization based in Washington, DC

Rferences:

• Read My Lps: A Cultural History of Lipstick, by Meg Chen Ragas and Karen Kozlowski.

• Fcefacts: A Guide to Cosmetics, Skin and Hir Care, by Alison Haynes.

• A-Z of Chmicals in the Home, (4th ed), Ttal Environment Centre & Choice Books.

• Skn Deep, Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org/ rports/skindeep)

• Not Too Prtty: Phthalates, Beauty Products and the FDA, (2002), Envronmental Working Group, Health Care Without Hrm and Coming Clean ( www.nottoopretty.org/report.htm)

• Truble In Toyland, New York Public Intrest Research Group (www.nypirg.org). The Chemical Hme, Greenpeace (www.greenpeace.org.uk/Products/ Toxics!)

The article The Trouble With Lipstick And Their Nasty Ingredients was Submitted by Adrianna Cooper through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: My name is Adrianna Cooper, I lve in Autralia and have just crated a new web site http://www.jasorglife.com and a now i am trying to educate people about the use of chemicals in our personal care products. My family and I are enjoy living on acreage and being able to produce most of our food supply using only the organic methods and using all things organic and natural.

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