Our Lipstick: Leaded or Unleaded?

Debra Bass wrote this article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch in the LifeStyle Section that I felt needed to be shared with everyone (most women, of course).
The first time a report about lead in lipstick circulated, everyone called it a hoax.  A cautionary e-mail with "insider" information made the rounds in 2003 impugning the integrity of some of the most trusted and covered cosmetics brand names around.  Maybe you'll remember this part:  It advised concerned consumers to scratch the lipstick with their 14K or 24K gold rings to test for a chemical lead reaction.  But the report was deemed an urban myth.  Everyone from scambusters.com to the Mayo Clinic quickly jumped to the defense of the cosmetics industry.  If significant lead levels were found in cosmetics, surely the government would have said something.  Regulations are in place to protect consumers.  Well, unfortunately, that turned out to be an urban myth as well. 
Our Lipstick really does contain lead.  The prescient e-mail hoax got some of the culprits wrong, but it got some of them right.
A new report, "Poison Kiss: Product Tests Find in Lipstick" , conducted by a team of scientists working for the The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, was published in October.
Leaded Lipstick varieties crossed every price strata.  The highest lead-containing samples came from deep, vibrant red varieies of L'Oreal, Cover Girl and Christian Dior.  All contained at least double the amount of the lead limit in candy, which is 0.1 parts per million.
But the question is: Just how dangerous is that?  The cynic in me thinks, well, it's a good thing that I don't eat lipstick.  The outraged consumer in me wants to know why this wasn't regulated.  The confused environmentalist in me wonders how bad is it, really.
The further complicate matters.  The Environmental Working Group has a "Skin Deep: Cosmetic Safety Database" that details the toxicity level in nearly 25,000 beauty products.  The website:  www.ewg.org - allows you to search by product name or brand and includes a rating system of low-risk, moderate-risk and bury-this-product-10-feet underground.
I have never been worried that vanity was a sin, but I never suspected that it might be a biohazard.  I am fully prepared to acknowledge my naivete'.  I should have suspected that creating wearable and wash-offable colors like non that exist in nature might require some extraordinary measures and questionable ingredients.  So forgive me if I shrug along with the rest of the not-so-outraged lipstick-wearing population - and that includes physicians.  With lots of dermatologists, such as Eva Hurst, who is an associate professor at Washington University, stating it is complicated and that people need to think of risk levels, because very little is risk-free.  Lead, she explains, is ubiquitous.  Detectable (which doesn't mean dangerous) levels can be found in produce and canned foods.
The Environmental Working Groups site says that due to "gaping loopholes in federal law, companies can put virtually any ingredient into personal care products.  Even worse, the government does not require pre-market safety ttests for any of them.  Our drinking water contains trace amounts of many dangerous checmicals, but that does not me we are better off not drinking it.
The real import of these product-testing groups has been the realization that we are vulnerable and federal regulations need to be exercised and enforced. Someone needs to answer the question of how much quaternium-15 puts a product in the danger category.  Right now, there's only speculation.
To date, none of these leaded or unleaded but potentially toxic products have been recalled." 
Article by DBass, 12/1/07 Lifestyle Issue, page 19.

They state we are not eating Lipstick, but it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out "where does your lipstick go and dissappear:?"  It is absorbed into the skin or the saliva that we produce is breaking down the Lipstick and it is digested. Therefore, we are digesting lead and eating it like we would candy!!!!