§ Claim under review · Ingredient_safety
"The average person swallows about two lipsticks' worth of lip product per year, which contains heavy metals like lead, cadmium, chromium, and aluminium"
Verdict
Partially accurate but misleading
Confidence
MediumSummary
The study behind this post is real and the numbers are mostly transcribed correctly. UC Berkeley researchers did test 32 lip products in 2013 and found lead in 24 of them, along with aluminium, cadmium, chromium and other metals. The annual amount is also roughly right as arithmetic, though it describes product applied, not metal, and it is worth knowing that nobody measured how much lip product people swallow. Researchers and regulators simply assume that everything applied is swallowed, on purpose, because that assumption errs toward overestimating exposure. Two things are left out. The figure comes from a mean among 360 American women who used lipstick, surveyed in 2003 and 2004, so it is not an average across all people. And the study itself found that lead, the metal the post names first, came in below 20 percent of the acceptable daily intake the authors calculated, at both average and heavy use, while the metal that most often exceeded that threshold was chromium, measured by a method that could not tell the more toxic form from the less toxic one. What remains genuinely unresolved is how much of the measured metal is actually absorbed when swallowed, and whether 20-year-old usage data still describe how people use lip products today. This is general information and not medical or dermatological advice.
The readings
key figures from the evidenceaverage lead concentration in 32 lip products studied
average daily lip product usage used in exposure modelling
lead intake vs acceptable daily intake at average and high use
Why this verdict
Evidence
The 2013 study exists and the post's headline numbers trace to it. Liu, Hammond and Rojas-Cheatham measured lead and eight other metals in a convenience sample of 32 lip products used by young Asian women in Oakland, California, and assessed potential health risks related to estimated intakes.
Most products contained high concentrations of titanium and aluminium, all products had detectable manganese, and lead was detected in 24 products, 75 percent, at an average concentration of 0.36 ppm with a maximum of 1.32 ppm. The sample was 8 lipsticks and 24 lip glosses.
On exposure, the authors did not measure swallowing. Based on usage data reported by the Personal Care Products Council, an industry group, the authors assumed the women ingested all the lip product they applied each day, an average of 24 mg per day, reaching 87 mg per day at the 95th percentile. That usage figure originates with a diary study. The Loretz study assessed lipstick usage among 360 US women aged 19 to 65 across 10 locations, documenting mean daily usage of 24 mg per day and median 13 mg per day, with a mean of 2.35 applications per day and 10 mg of product per application; at the 95th percentile usage was 87 mg per day.
FDA uses the same number and works the arithmetic explicitly. FDA states that dermal absorption of lead from these products is negligible and systemic exposure is primarily by incidental ingestion, and that average usage has been reported as 10 mg per application and 24 mg per day.
FDA concludes 24 mg per day is a realistic estimate of actual usage of cosmetic lip products in the US, meaning a typical 3 gram tube of lipstick would be used up in about 4 months. Four months per 3 g tube is about 2.9 tubes a year.
On whether the measured metals amounted to meaningful exposure, the study's own conclusions do not match the post's emphasis. When used at the estimated average daily rate, estimated intakes were greater than 20 percent of the acceptable daily intakes derived by the authors for aluminium, cadmium, chromium and manganese, while estimated intakes of lead were less than 20 percent of the acceptable daily intakes for both average and high use.
For the product with the highest lead concentration, estimated lead intake was 3 percent of the acceptable daily intake at average use and 12 percent at high use.
At high use above the 95th percentile, exposures exceeded the acceptable daily intake for aluminium in 1 sample, 3 percent of products, chromium in 22 samples, 68 percent, and manganese in 7 samples, 22 percent. Cadmium did not exceed the derived acceptable daily intake at either rate.
The chromium result, which drove most of the exceedances, carries a caveat stated by the authors themselves: the derived acceptable daily intake of 0.1 µg per day for a 50 kg woman was based on hexavalent chromium , while the measurement method did not distinguish hexavalent chromium from less toxic forms, so the percentage of hexavalent chromium in the lip products is unknown .
Regulator testing of lead in lip products is larger and more representative than the 32-product study. FDA tested 400 cosmetic lip products on the US market; results ranged from a detection limit of 0.026 ppm to a high of 7.19 ppm, all but two were below 5 ppm, and the mean was 1.11 ppm, close to the 1.07 ppm mean of an earlier 20-product survey.
Officials said the findings were not indicative of a safety concern, and FDA and health officials stated that because lipstick is ingested in such small doses the lead content does not pose a safety hazard.
A consumer group disputes FDA's position, arguing FDA has no scientific basis for its conclusion.
Cadmium persistence is correctly stated. Measurements of cadmium in human tissues combined with excretion measurements indicate a biological half-life of 10 to 30 years in muscle, kidney cortex and liver tissue.
Cadmium accumulates primarily in the kidneys, with the highest concentration in the renal cortex.
Cigarette smoke is the largest source of non-occupational cadmium exposure, and food is another source.
Findings
✓ What's accurate 5
- A 2013 UC Berkeley study did test 32 lip products and did detect lead in 24 of them, at an average of 0.36 ppm with a maximum of 1.32 ppm. The 32 and the 24 in the post are correct.
- Aluminium, cadmium and chromium were among the nine metals measured, and all four metals the post names were detected in at least some products. Aluminium and titanium were present at the highest concentrations of the metals tested.
- The 24 mg per day and 87 mg per day figures are real and are the operative US exposure parameters. They come from a diary study of 360 US women aged 19 to 65 conducted in 2003 and 2004, and FDA uses the 24 mg per day figure in its own lead assessment.
- The annual arithmetic is in the right range. At 24 mg per day, FDA calculates that a 3 gram tube is used up in about 4 months, which works out to nearly three tubes a year. "About two lipsticks' worth" is the same order of magnitude and, against FDA's own 3 gram reference tube, on the low side.
- The post's statement that cadmium can remain in the body for 10 to 30 years, mostly in the kidneys, matches the toxicology literature on cadmium biological half-life.
≈ What's misleading 8
- The word "swallows" describes an assumption, not a measurement. The researchers assumed that every milligram of product applied was ingested. Nobody measured how much lip product people actually swallow. Regulators use the same assumption deliberately because it is conservative and errs toward overestimating exposure, which means the true swallowed amount is at or below the figure quoted, not above it.
- "The average person" is not the population the number describes. The figure is a mean among 360 US women who used lipstick, surveyed over two decades ago. People who do not use lip products ingest none, so a genuine population average would be lower, and the median in that same study was 13 mg per day, roughly half the mean.
- Pairing a volume of product with a list of toxic metals invites a reader to infer a meaningful metal dose, but the volume figure is product, not metal. At the study's average lead concentration, a year of product at 24 mg per day corresponds to a few millionths of a gram of lead.
- The post leads with lead, and lead is the metal the cited study found least concerning. Estimated lead intakes were below 20 percent of the acceptable daily intakes the authors themselves derived, at both average and high use. For the single worst product, lead intake was 3 percent of the acceptable daily intake at average use.
- Cadmium is named in the metals list and given a vivid 10 to 30 year persistence fact, but cadmium intake from lip products did not exceed the study's derived acceptable daily intake at either average or high use. The persistence fact is true of cadmium in general; it is not a finding about lip products.
- "From ordinary shops" describes the sample as if it were market-representative. It was a convenience sample of 8 lipsticks and 24 lip glosses named by young Asian women in Oakland, California. FDA's larger 400-product survey of the US market is a better basis for market-wide statements about lead.
- Aluminium is presented in a contaminant list, but aluminium and titanium were the two metals found at the highest concentrations and are partly there on purpose, as approved colour additives and as additives that stop colours bleeding, according to an industry toxicologist quoted in the journal's own companion piece.
- The post's claim that the average woman uses 12 personal care products a day with 168 ingredients comes from a 2004 self-reported survey run by EWG and allied advocacy organisations, not from a probability-sampled or peer-reviewed study. EWG's own later resurvey puts the figure at 12 products with 112 ingredients for the average adult. That line is quoted from the organisation that generated it, and it is roughly two decades old.
? What's uncertain 6
- How much lip product people actually swallow, as opposed to how much they apply, remains unmeasured. Every figure in this area rests on the applied-equals-ingested assumption.
- The chromium result, which produced most of the exceedances in the study, assumed all measured chromium was hexavalent chromium. The authors state their method could not distinguish hexavalent chromium from less toxic forms, so the proportion that was hexavalent is unknown. If most was the less toxic form, the chromium exceedances would shrink.
- The acceptable daily intakes used in the study were derived by the authors from public health goals and reference levels set for other exposure routes and contexts, not from cosmetic-specific limits set by a regulator. No regulator-set acceptable daily intakes for these metals in lip products were found.
- Whether total metal content measured by acid digestion is bioavailable when swallowed in a wax matrix was not established by the study, which measured total metal.
- The 2003 to 2004 usage diary data predate the growth of lip gloss, lip oil and lip balm use, and no newer US usage study was found. Whether 24 mg per day still describes current behaviour is unknown.
- No clinical or epidemiological study was found measuring health outcomes in people who use lip products, as distinct from modelled intake estimates.
Sources
7 of 8 linked to recordsLiu S, Hammond SK, Rojas-Cheatham A. "Concentrations and Potential Health Risks of Metals in Lip Products." Environmental Health Perspectives 2013;121(6):705-710
FDA, "Supporting Document for Recommended Maximum Lead Level in Cosmetic Lip Products and Externally Applied Cosmetics"
Loretz et al. 2005 consumer use study (360 US women, 2003-2004), accessed via FDA supporting document and via a 2025 regulatory review in Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management
Brown VJ. "Metals in Lip Products: A Cause for Concern?" EHP 2013;121(6):A196
IUPAC Technical Report, "Risk assessment of effects of cadmium on human health"
UK OPSS, "A Feasibility Study Investigating Action Limits for Certain Heavy Metals in Cosmetics"
EWG, "Exposures add up: survey results" (2004) and EWG/Morning Consult resurvey
Contemporary press coverage (NBC, CBS, Houston Chronicle)