Is your lipstick toxic? Is your lipstick toxic?

Symbol of seduction, femininity, sensuality... For some, lipstick is a must. It's inconceivable to step outside without this touch of lipstick.

Clean Beauty, the application to detect unwanted

But what do these little sticks contain? To analyze their composition, you no longer need a master's degree in chemistry, nor a magnifying glass! The Clean Beauty application allows, by photographing the ingredients, to detect the undesirables. You might be surprised when you read the ingredients that make up some lipsticks... Brands like Chanel, Dior, Make Up Forever also contain BHT (Butylhydroxytoluene). We interviewed Professor Corinne Charlier, Head of the clinical toxicology department at the University Hospital of Liège. The latter tells us that BHT has been highlighted in particular in Chanel lipstick: "It is a preservative, an antioxidant. Since these are fairly greasy products, oxidation must be prevented. Otherwise they they will deteriorate, they will have a bad smell. So we put anti-oxidants. Unfortunately, again for this BHT, part of the scientific community believes that it has an endocrine disrupting power".

Just like BHA, Butylhydroxyanisole, found in Dusky Pink from Claire's and bought more by young girls, given its low price: 3.99 euros. This product also contains three parabens. “These parabens are suspected of acting as endocrine disruptors, at least by a large part of the scientific community. And therefore exposure to these parabens is quite risky as well”.

Lipstick, cosmetic most at risk

Another way to pin down the ingredients at risk: the site of the French consumer association "UOPC - Que Choisir". The latter has listed hundreds of products. We type the barcode and we discover the risks according to the age categories. Let's see for a certain lip cream from NYX... "You will find an ingredient that has a medium risk, cyclopentasiloxane. These are substances that are also endocrine disruptors" specifies Professor Charlier again.

Whatever the brand, whatever the price, we find in the compositions of these red mineral oils: "There are mineral oils which are saturated and others, unsaturated. The saturated ones, they will rather have an effect toxicity on the liver for example. And in the unsaturates, we think that there might be polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which could be carcinogenic". "Que Choisir" found that lipsticks were the most risky cosmetics... 82% of lipsticks analyzed by them contain these toxic and carcinogenic synthetic hydrocarbons and mineral oils.

Brands hide behind toxicity thresholds

What do producers and distributors of cosmetics say? " This is false, and the report of the BFR, the German federal evaluation institute confirms that these mineral oils can be used without danger in cosmetic products. They are also used in pharmaceutical products. At the sole condition to use a pharmaceutical grade or a food grade with a very high level of purity. For this, Cosmetics Europe has published the guidelines and the industry is supposed to follow them..." declares Frederick Warzee, Detic Spokesperson ASBL, the Association of producers and distributors of Belgian Luxembourg cosmetics which brings together many brands such as L'Oréal -GemmeyèMaybelline.

We also asked the question directly to the brands, who assured us that there is no risk. Many hide behind toxicity thresholds. “Unfortunately, most of the chemicals we talk about, especially endocrine disruptors, they are known to have non-threshold effects,” explains Professor Charlier. "That is to say that as soon as there is the product in our body, there is a risk of developing the toxicity associated with it. The problem will be the "cocktail effect", the mixture of these different substances into his body, which can lead to long-term toxic effects.”

the European NGO, Alliance for Health and the Environment (HEAL) gave us its opinion: "Endocrine disruptors are not sufficiently regulated in cosmetics". But good news, the Belgian Senate last February issued recommendations on this subject: "We must ensure that the public authorities prohibit the use of endocrine disruptors in products where they are not necessary, and this, in order to limit exposure to endocrine disruptors as much as possible, such as cosmetics. So here it is, Belgium can act on this basis. Today it really has very good intentions. We just have to put that into action". Sophie Perroud, policy coordinator at Healse asks when our Minister of Health, Maggie De Block is going to act because it is high time to do something especially for groups at risk, especially pregnant women, teenagers and children. Especially since Heal did the math in 2014: “Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) could cost the EU up to €31 billion a year. save billions of dollars in health care costs."

In the meantime, if you really want to color your lips, before choosing it, do not forget to analyze the ingredients. There are some without controversial ingredients. Instead, look for organic brands and also in pharmacies, but be careful, this does not mean that when you see the ORGANIC logo or buy from a pharmacy that all the ingredients are systematically safe... The best thing is to analyze the composition of your red before buying it or making it yourself, it doesn't seem to be so difficult. (A little Hubert challenge...)