Recently, I stumbled upon an interesting BuzzFeed article (please don’t immediately ignore me because I mentioned BuzzFeed) about popular cosmetic products that you should stop using on your skin and hair. The main reasoning behind avoiding each product (all of which were pretty general categories, like henna hair dye, antiperspirants, and mineral makeup) was that they all contain some dangerous chemical or another, usually a heavy metal that occurs naturally in very small dosages, but is toxic when concentrated and can build up inside your body over time. The article was laden with links to outside sources to support its argument, including a study done in 2010 on lipsticks that were found to contain lead along with other heavy metals.
Although the FDA claimed that the amount of lead was not enough to do harm to people, I—excuse me if I sound ridiculous here—still don’t want to ingest lead. “If used as intended,” the amount of lead present in the pigment of the lip color should be relatively benign, but what do they mean by the “proper” use of lipstick? Does that just mean I shouldn’t eat it as a snack, or that I shouldn’t apply it twenty times per day lest I start poisoning myself?
Obviously BuzzFeed should not be our main source for information on the health and safety of our beauty products (maybe the FDA shouldn’t either…). A website called FutureDerm (Is this person a future dermatologist, or a dermatologist from the future? I wonder) even published a retort where the writer went through each point and discussed why and how it was wrong, which I totally respect. As an obsessive skin care junkie and crazy label-checker, however, I might have to—gasp—take BuzzFeed’s side.
Yes, they came to the wrong conclusion in some cases and they probably don’t know the chemical difference between parabens and phthalates, but that honestly doesn’t really matter because not many people do—yet we all still use cosmetics in some capacity.
What I think BuzzFeed got right that FutureDerm and dermatologists across the country are getting wrong is the use of chemicals in the first place. Answer me this: If you were presented with two skin care products, one full of chemicals manufactured in a lab while the other is comprised of 99% plants, vegetable oils, fruits, and other tasty and natural ingredients, and both will have the same positive cosmetic effect you are seeking, which one would you choose? Call me crazy, but I would choose the latter option.
Thus, unless there is a concoction of chemicals that is the absolute and only cure for your cosmetic ailment, why would you use it? This is skin care, makeup, and hair dye we’re talking about here, not cancer treatments; it should be as simple as possible while still being effective. If you can get the same, if not better, results from a product that basically comes from the ground, doesn’t it make more sense to use that product instead? Yes, there is a difference between “natural” and natural, but it is our responsibility to find out by reading labels and researching where and how the company sources its ingredients.
In the end, I honestly could not care any less if the levels of lead in my lipstick are not high enough to cause any of the beautiful symptoms of lead poisoning—I don’t want it or any of the Franken-chemicals that are present in all but few of the skin and hair care products available on the market to be anywhere near me and my epidermis. I want you to pull that sh*t out of the ground or squeeze it out of a coconut, not design some new freaky compound for me to slather on my face. So, I think I’ll stick to the coconuts because they seem to be doing just fine.
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