On the upside, I bet that many of them were not tested on animals!
Just how much lead must you ingest or let into your body to really be affected?
Any dopers out there with real facts on this?
I have often wondered how much of the worry about lead is overblown. This has been brought to mind several times when it became necessary to repaint the house every couple of years, when the original paint had lasted 20 to 30 years.
I don’t know what the dosage limits are, but lead tends to stay in the body for a very long time, so even small doses can be a problem.
Lipstick has the unfortunate habit of entering the mouth. If it gets on teeth, most women just suck it off. It also gets rubbed off on food and beverage glasses.
I now have the perfect excuse for why I don’t wear makeup! “I’m avoiding lead poisoning!” 
Robin
This makes me so glad I never wear lipstick, not even when dressing up.
I heard one woman say today that this is totally different than paint on toys. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what is so different. Either they are both worth freaking out over or both situations are overblown.
I’m wondering how bad lead exposure really is as well
I’m a sportsman, so that means I do a lot of fishing (using lead sinkers) during the spring, summer and fall, and I also enjoy shooting sports (Trapshooting and general target shooting), and the bullets and shotshells use lead projectiles, and cleaning firearms exposes me to lead as well, when i clean up the fouling left after a fun afternoon at the range slinging lead downrange…
so far, no ill effects yet, 38 years later, been shooting since I was 12, and fishing since I was 7
I’m not denying that lead toxicity isn’t a problem, the dosages just have to be rather high for there to be noticeable effects, I guess
There is a difference between cosmetics and the toys, I think, because the cosmetic companies know very well that their products contain carcinogens. In fact, they’ve had to reformulate them for European Union countries because the E.U. made them ILLEGAL. The amounts may be minute, but I’m pretty low maintenance and I still use tons of products- shampoo, face cream, body cream, deodorant, perfume, dish soap, lip gloss… It all adds up.
There are so many quack conspiracy theories and urban legends going around – this is an issue American and Canadian women SHOULD be getting mad about. These products CAN be made safer, but it’s not going to happen until we demand it, either by boycotting companies or making the FDA actually, you know, regulate the industry.
Lead, like all heavy metals builds up in your system. The damage is cumulative. A one time exposure to a very small amount of lead is probably not terrible, but continuosly ingesting a small amount of a heavy metal over a long period of time is very bad. Products that go on your skin not to mention in your mouth should have lead content strictly controled.
This from a guy that thinks benzene isn’t too bad. At least the body processes benzene and removes it from your body.
Missing info: how does ppm in something like lipstick affect ppb in blood? anyone know?
And you are aware that a major difference between lead fishing weights, lead bullets, and lipstick is that you are unlikely to ingest lead fishing weights and bullets? In your 38 years of fishing and shooting how many bullets and lead weights have you ingested orally? (Approximate numbers will be fine. 
)
Just a few points:
[ul]If one anecdote shows no effect of lead, this does not mean that lead cannot be dangerous. How many of us have heard of the 90-year-old who smokes every day? Does anyone actually think this means smoking cannot cause cancer?[/ul]
[ul]Toxins whose first effects are psychological - e.g. some of the chronic effects of lead exposure include irritability, sleepiness, headaches, and depression - make it difficult, especially for the layperson, to diagnose properly the cause. How many of us have had these psychological symptoms and can leap through to the inappropriate conclusion that lead poisoning is the cause without actually being tested?[/ul]
[ul]Hi, Opal - you contain an unknown concentration of lead![/ul]
[ul]The FBI actually does recommend that people who engage in lots of shooting to be aware of the hazards of lead, although it is not very likely that a shooting career will end in lead poisoning: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2194/is_n8_v62/ai_14507485[/ul]
The current guidelines for safe lead exposure in the U.S. are:
For airborne exposure (such as you might get from lead particles in the air from shooting):
http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=10030
40 micrograms per 100 g of blood isn’t a lot of lead. I’d say exposure limits are low, but the chance of getting exposed in this manner is unlikely unless you work in an occupation like smelting, where lead will be continuously vaporized in your presence throughout the workday.
Now what about ingesting lead?
Frankly, I think unsupported ideas about “lead exposure must be pretty high to lead to illness” are unwise and will lead people not to take the idea of lead exposure seriously. Micrograms are one millionth of a gram - 15 micrograms in a liter of water (which weighs 1 kilogram) is not much lead at all.
For some more on the topic of exposure limits:
I don’t know if that is known. It would depend on how much of the lead from ingested lipstick is absorbed through the disgestive tract and incorporated into the blood (ETA: and how often and over how much time the lipstick is ingested.) The studies might be out there, but I haven’t searched for them.
I think the key here is to remember: It’s not a choice between no lipstick or lipstick, it’s a choice between lipstick with lead (and therefore a non-zero risk of chronic lead effects) and lipstick without lead (by definition a zero risk of chronic lead effects.)
I only use lip gloss…uh…they didn’t mention that in the article, so I’m assuming I’m safe.
I wish this were true, but as the article indicated the tested lipsticks not only had no listed lead but also varied within brands and varieties, and seeing how I don’t have access to a lead-testing lab for my personal cosmetics, seems like for the consumer, it’s is a choice between lipstick that might have lead and no lipstick.
Fair enough, they really should mention which brands don’t have detectable levels of lead when they run a story like this. It seems that Revlon has lipstick without lead.
Damn you’re good. 
This article states that the lip colors with the highest lead content were vibrant shades of red.
Lead exposure in small amounts is more critical in children under the age of 6. Still, ingesting (either through pewter foodware, hand to mouth activity etc…)/inhaling lead dust is not healthy for adults either. I get an annual physical from work every year. Every year they draw blood and lead is one of he things they test for and I am A-OK. I used to play with lead fishing weights as a kid, played with lead shot while my dad re-loaded his shotgun shells and I spend plenty of time target shooting.
You can get more information regarding lead hazards from HUD , EPA and OSHA .
Also, some brands of Mexican candy tends to have alarmingly high levels of lead.