Face painting: harmless fun or imminent brain damage?

Factual Questions
1

Last year I got some Snazaroo face paints, and we’ve had a lot of fun with them. Not only for Halloween, but I also painted everyone’s face at my daughter’s birthday party this summer and it was a huge hit.

Then this week I saw an old article about lead in face paint. It sounds scary, but the group that produced it also thinks triclosan, parabens, and many other standard cosmetic ingredients are The Devil. So I looked around a bit.

In summary, The Campaign for Safe Cosmeticssays Snazaroo contains some lead, and there is no safe lower limit for lead exposure for kids. Therefore, the face paint is dangerous. They also say that the FDA doesn’t have any limit on the amount of lead in cosmetics. TCfSC says they found .56 parts per million of lead in Snazaroo.

Snazarooresponds that their stuff has trace metals due to using mineral pigments that are naturally commingled with small amounts of other elements, but that the amounts are well within FDA and European regulatory limits. Snazaroo offers some test resultsfrom 1995 that show from <5 to 10 ppm.

So what’s the deal? Can I smear this on my kids without destroying their neurons or what? Does the FDA actually have any meaningful limits on lead in cosmetics? Is this real or just earthy-crunchy hysteria?

2

According to wikipedia, anyway, lead poisoning can only happen through inhalation, ingestion, or contact with broken skin and mucous membranes. Good question as to how accurate that is.

3

The FDA’s official word on cosmetics is a bit confusing - there’s not a limit on the amount of lead in a given cosmetic, but there are limits on lead in the color additives that the cosmetics are made of.

Much more information is available straight from the FDA.

They also have some basic common-sense info on novelty makeups such as face paint.

4

Garden soil typically has measurable lead content of something like 10 to 40 parts per million. If you’re going to worry about a once-yearly face painting session with paint containing .56 ppm lead, then it’s definitely unsafe to let your kids outside at all, in case they fall in the mud.

5

Thanks guys - that was just the kind of info I was looking for!