What is Halloween Makeup Masking?

As parents, we go out of our way to make sure our kids are safe and protected from harm. And on the night of Halloween, many of us are extra careful. We may walk our kids door to door to make sure they are safe while trick-or-treating, and we may check the candy that our kids are putting into their mouths to make sure it’s safe to eat. This Halloween, I want to make sure parents know about potentially toxic paint and makeup on sale throughout the country and what to look out for to keep their children safe.

Many busy parents will think that because it is on the shelf at the grocery or party store it’s safe. While that should be the test, a recent study shows that plan is hardly foolproof. This Halloween, the makeup picked off the shelves of countless stores across America could be masking some serious chemicals like lead, nickel and cobalt.

According to a study from the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics that tested Halloween paints, ten out of ten tested positive for heavy metals containing lead. Lead poisoning can cause anything from severe vomiting and abdominal pain to major nervous system conditions. Low levels of lead in the blood have been found to affect IQs, ability to pay attention, academic achievement and more. And the worst part — lead poisoning has a cumulative effect. So, it builds up in the body, exposure after exposure. While lead poisoning awareness has increased over the years, when my daughters were little I worried about lead in our walls and our pipes, never in costumes and face paint at parties and on Halloween.

Even for parents who are already on the lookout for these potentially toxic products, the FDA does not conduct routine testing on them, so the toxic ingredients that can make a child very, very sick are never listed on the packaging.

Halloween makeup, often made in China, gets shipped to the U.S. and stocked on the shelves of our local stores, ready to use as part of the year’s must-have costume, and we have no way of knowing if it is safe or not. It certainly brings new meaning to the phrase: “trick-or-treat.”

So this week I am urging the FDA to unmask the ingredients that are often left off the packaging of Halloween makeup and face paint. Heavy metals and other dangerous chemicals simply do NOT belong on anyone’s face, let alone the face of an innocent ghost, monster, black cat, or Else, and the FDA must ensure that companies provide full disclosure of all ingredients found in these products.

While lead is banned from makeup in Canada and Europe, it’s not banned from makeup sold here in the United States; sixty-six percent of the top brands of lipstick sold in the U.S. contain lead. The FDA must catch up and investigate these makeup and novelty cosmetic products like Halloween face paint to determine exactly which ingredients are being hidden. If the product contains lead or nickel or cobalt or any other toxic chemical, parents and consumers have an urgency to know. Just like we trust the list of ingredients on the back of Halloween candy, we should be able to trust the list of ingredients on the back of Halloween face paint. In the meantime, I hope parents will take a closer look, share this with friends and family and be wary of makeup and face paints made in China.