Heavy Metals Rocking Cosmetics
By Iñaki Lopez
When we say the word ‘toxic’ out loud we tend to think of something radical. Something that lands on our skin and leads to our skin melting away. We think of poison or hazardous waste that cannot and should not come into contact with our skin. When we say the words ‘heavy metal’, it is easy for the first thought to be a sub-genre of rock music, but the ‘heavy metal’ we’ll be talking about here has nothing to do with music. When people say ‘heavy metal’ in the scientific field, it is dealing with elements such as lead, cadmium, chromium, and arsenic. These are just some of the heavy metals researchers deal with; nonetheless, these four seem to be the most recurring and toxic ones out there.
But let’s take a moment and take mankind out of the picture. These heavy metals would still be prevalent because they are naturally occurring; however, the toxicity and harm studied has stemmed directly from man-made industries and processes. Automobile emissions, fertilizers, lead-based paints, and industrialized wastes and services all contribute to the detrimental effects toxic heavy metals can have on humans. Nonetheless, all of these examples deal with things humans have made or are in control of, so it ultimately comes down to what we want ourselves to be exposed to.
Like many things harmful to mankind today, heavy metals continue to harm us because we use them in some of our everyday products. Whether we are putting them in our products accidently or not (and I would hope we aren’t including them on purpose), we need to be more aware of the way we are handling such products. Essentially, it is even more important to monitor these substances when dealing with pregnant women because the chemicals are in turn transferred to the fetus. As a parent, who in their right mind would want their baby to be exposed before they even come out of the womb?
Heavy metals in cosmetic products is something not many people are aware about and I think the lack of awareness has mainly to do with no one really thinking there is a reason for there to be a heavy metal in a product such as lipstick or mascara. But, it is true. There are increasing amounts of heavy metals in cosmetics and that by itself is enough reason for alarm.
Now why would cosmetic companies use heavy metals in their products if there is a known possibility of harmful after-effects? Like I said before, these heavy metals are naturally occurring, so they can be found in the ground, and can ultimately end up being byproducts of ingredients used in the making of a product. So, companies could be putting heavy metals in their products accidently. Whenever a company is going for the ‘all-natural’ product, they could be giving someone the purest product, yet this product could still be filled with metals due to their naturally occurring characteristics.
Other cosmetics use these metals as preservatives in some cases and are put into the products advertently. There is sufficient reason for alarm because of the possible neurological and developmental effects these heavy metals, being applied directly and absorbed through the skin, could have on a growing fetus during pregnancy (Kaličanin 2016).
The first thing women should do when buying make-up is to read the ingredients and become conscious of what they are using. By doing so, they will know what is being absorbed through their skin reaching their baby. It can seem silly to be reading every single ingredient in a product, especially when the amount of heavy metal in a product could be in ppm or even ppb! Still, I believe it is necessary for such precautionary steps to be taking due to the bioaccumulation characteristic these toxic metals possess.
How Bioaccumulation Works
You may be asking yourself, “what exactly does bioaccumulation mean and how could it affect me?”, and here it is. This characteristic means that these toxins can be built up over the course of a lifetime and not leave the human system for many decades. This means that if a pregnant woman stopped applying cosmetics when she got pregnant at 28 but had been using them since the age of 15, she would have nearly a decade and a half worth of bioaccumulation! This is why the public needs to be educated on what they are applying onto their skin early on.
While accompanying my 23-year-old sister to buy her make up today, I expressed my concern that she needs to be careful with which products she is buying and using. She was quick to respond that all her favorite products were labeled “all-natural” and that no harmful chemicals would be used. I was quick to respond that, again, these heavy metals are naturally occurring and can therefore be found in rocks, soil, and water sources, and companies could be retrieving some of their natural ingredients from regions highly contaminated. In theory, the ingredients being extracted are in fact ‘natural’, so companies are not obligated to report on any impurities that come from natural contamination (Bocca 2014). The information provided on the product could therefore be false and incredibly misleading. Nonetheless, it is encouraged for consumers to be engaged with their products and for them to seek out the least toxic and harmful of them.
In reality, it is not the consumers fault for being unaware that companies could possibly be lying to them, rather it is the regulators fault for setting pro-industry standards instead of pro-consumer standards. By not making companies accountable for unintentional, yet known, impurities, you are basically telling people it’s okay to borrow without asking, which in other words is simply stealing. Next time you are thinking of getting that all-natural foundation, think twice about what company is putting the product on the shelf, and whether or not you would trust them to explicitly tell you the truth.
It would be worrisome to find out that heavy metals are found in many cosmetics around the globe, but in an examination done by M.A. Gondal from the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals on carcinogenic contaminants in lipstick, he found toxins such as lead and cadmium present. When he tested four different lipsticks, he found all contaminant levels to be higher than permissible levels, yet these products were still on display shelves. Was a woman to go and buy these lead and cadmium contaminated lipsticks during her pregnancy, the effects of toxic heavy metals would be transferred to the fetus. This poses the question of how much contaminant is actually transferred and to what extent?
Mother to Fetus Transfer Rate
It is increasingly difficult to track the transfer rate, and most of the time we do not see the detrimental effects of heavy metals until, unfortunately, it is too late. It was not until 1978 that lead in paint was banned in the US, so this means people could have been, and were most likely, experiencing lead poisoning every year before that. It can be inferred that only after many people were affected by the toxic metal were changes in the industry made, and this may also be happening in the cosmetics industry.
There is lacking research into the effects these minute amounts of heavy metals could possibly have on a fetus during pregnancy, so there is lacking regulation in the harvesting of ingredients for cosmetics. Nonetheless, Gondal has led progressive research in the field and is apprehensive towards the industry because the accumulation of small amounts of toxins could possibly lead to issues with one’s nervous system. It is vital to point out, that Gondal predicts the that the heavy metals will take about 40 years to leave the human body. Yikes… Of course, because we are dealing with pregnant women–everything she applies and is absorbed by her skin could potentially be traced to the fetus.
Cadmium
Do you remember being in a front yard and smelling that obnoxious smell of manure, or have you seen crop fields being sprayed with pesticides? Well if you have, then something these two things have in common is that they both contain the heavy metal CADMIUM. Something else that contains cadmium is lipstick! Dr Ya-Li Zhang from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences composed a study of the hindering effects higher levels of cadmium in the environment could have on a newborn’s height, weight, and neonatal asphyxia.
The Institute of Medicine set the “safe” cadmium level at about 5 ppb, but the levels Zhang found were significantly higher sitting at 2.0 ppm. This is an alarming difference, especially when looking at it from the perspective of a pregnant woman. The results from the study were radical and displayed a negatively associated correlation between cord blood cadmium level and the neonatal birth height (Zhang 2004). This means that a woman who happened to be exposed to more cadmium throughout her lifetime leading up to pregnancy would potentially have a shorter child than mother who was not exposed to as much metal toxicity. Every measurement and vital is heavily taken into account when a baby is born, and in his study, Zhang found that heavily exposed mothers gave birth to babies that were 2.24 cm shorter on average. This, again, is cause for alarm and concern.
Lead
In elementary school I remember freaking out over there being lead in our pencils, but little did I know that lead was actually never used. I also had no idea what lead could do to you, so I am not entirely sure why I was freaking out at the age of 7 about it. Nonetheless, there are significant side effects that were discovered and finally addressed about lead that were detrimental to mankind’s wellbeing. Along with many other experts, Mohsen Vigeh of the Department of Hazard Assessment in Tokyo argues that neurological development will be negatively affected by having lead in our systems.
In 2014, Vigeh presented his research on lower developmental scores in relation to higher levels of lead in the baby’s system. Although the levels of lead were significantly higher than normal, it needs to be noted that even low levels of lead are incredibly harmful. Lead has repeatedly been found in facial cosmetics and in turn will be absorbed through the skin and enter the system. As we know, whatever enters the mother’s system will ultimately end up in the fetus’. People could be skeptical of the amount of lead that is actually absorbed, and to address this question Omar Al-Dayel of the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology focused his study on absorption.
Absorption
Al-Dayel examined several high-end cosmetics from Saudi Arabia and found that all contained traces of lead. Typically, high-end cosmetics look to provide people with healthier options, so if traces are being found in these, then it could be assumed low-end cosmetics are contaminated with higher levels of lead. In his study, Al-Dayel found a noteworthy difference between the absorption rates in adults and rates in children. Adults absorb only about 11% of lead compared to the potential 30–75% absorbed by children (Al-Dayel 2011). Research in this field needs to continue at a faster pace because many women are using multiple products at once, so the percentage of lead actually being absorbed could be higher. A lot of research focuses on a single product or metal rather than focusing on multiple products and the mixing of metals in the system, so it is imperative that the public push for more research.
Like in any field of research, there will be those that disagree with results being published. Daland Juberg works for Dow AgroSciences, a company specializing in pesticides, argues that trace levels of lead in consumer products still remains a “low risk for humans” (1997). For the most part however, the scientific community agrees that even minute traces of lead will prove to be detrimental on human development. I am not sure who would want to set their child up for neurological development setback, so to me it seems obvious that people would want to stray away from any product that has even minimal amounts of lead. A “low risk” still presents itself as a threat to one’s health, so I would rather not play with fire.
Along the lines of hindered neurological development comes the topic of neural malformation, which is also an effect of heavy metal toxicity. Mother’s hope and pray for a healthy baby, and the idea of malformation is a major fear, yet if the possibility can be lowered by minimizing the use of a cosmetic product I believe that needs to be addressed.
2,5 Hexanedione
2,5 Hexanedione is an organic solvent mostly used as an electronic device cleaner, but for some reason it has also being found in cosmetics. This solvent is characterized as exhibiting high volatility, high fat solubility, and bioaccumulation (Cheng 2012). Dr Cheng from the School of Medicine at Jinan University performed his research on neural malformation in chick embryos to determine the level and extremity of neural malformation, if any, that the solvent caused. Neuropathy, or a numbness or weakness caused by damage to the nerve system, is a result of chronic exposure to the solvent when found in an adult’s nervous system (Cheng 2012). What has stood out most from Cheng’s study was the result that some of the chick embryos had little or no development of their eyes when exposed to high levels of the organic solvent! Of course, this study was performed on chick embryos and not humans, so the results should be met with some form of skepticism; nonetheless, if this can occur in a chick embryo it could quite possibly happen in a human fetus.
Study Faults and Weaknesses
The studies being done deal mainly with exposure to a single heavy metal at high doses, so the effects we are seeing need to be taken with some form of caution. Marinela Kampa from the University of Crete states that women need to be cautious of the way they interpret results. In a way, Kampa is correct in her judgement. Although women are definitely exposed to heavy metals through their cosmetics, heavy metals could also be inhaled and ingested through air pollution, so not all exposure is coming merely from cosmetics (Kampa 2008).
Unfortunately, air pollution will always find its way into waterways, which will in turn affect the food being produced. Pregnant women could eat this food, so the heavy metal effects could be extended to this field as well. The risk of a fetus experiencing teratogenic effects from heavy metals will be magnified when looking at the different routes a trace of heavy metal could take. It is incredibly difficult to completely shield oneself from air pollution, it could be said that it’s nearly impossible, but when it comes to cosmetics, pregnant women could more easily find an alternative.
When it comes to scientific studies, a major part after the study is determining the weaknesses found. Of course, someone from the Harvard Medical School does just that. David Bellinger examines common weaknesses when studies dealing with heavy metal accumulation are performed. A major concern of his and something to take into account when looking at these experiments, is that exposure rate and amount could be misclassified or misrepresented. The biomarkers that account for the amount of exposure measured could potentially be unavailable at “biologically appropriate times” (Bellinger 2005). In other words, the exposure being measured during a study could possibly be from exposure taken in during the subject’s past, and not entirely from the experiment being done.
So, What can be done?
Toxic heavy metals seem to be everywhere around us, and if you are a pregnant woman, a sense of fear and almost helplessness could be sinking in. Cosmetics laced with heavy metals are just one of the many modes through which pregnant women could be exposed, and as the results for past research have stated, I believe we are justified in our concern over such products. By being conscious of what a pregnant woman is buying and knowing what ingredients are going into production, she could knock out one of the ways toxic heavy metals reach her baby. Taking only cosmetics out of the grand equation seems minimal, and it very well may be, but due to the bioaccumulation property these toxic metals exhibit, every little bit counts. Because human life is at stake with this issue, I believe more research into this field needs to be funded and looked at closely. Cosmetic manufacturers need to be held accountable for what is going into their products because it is what could ultimately lead to a hindrance in neurological development or neural malformation, and as a cosmetics brand, that may be the last thing you want on your hands.
