Lipstick Give You Lead Poisoning?

A new study from the FDA says that nearly 400 best-selling lipsticks have tested positive for lead. Before you kiss your cosmetics goodbye, though, there are a few things you should know.

Beauty boost or health hazard? That’s the question women everywhere are asking in the wake of a new study from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

According to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a coalition that advocates for healthier makeup and hygiene products, hundreds of popular lipsticks currently on the market have tested positive for lead, which can be toxic even in small amounts.

The Campaign reports that the FDA analyzed 400 different lipsticks and found low levels of lead in almost all of them. May be line’s “Color Sensational” Pink Petal was the worst offender, with 7.19 ppm (parts per million) — 275 times the amount found in the least-contaminated product, Wet & Wild’s Mega Mixers Lip Balm — but L’Oreal, Cover Girl, and Nars had products in the top five, too. The average lead content across all 400 brands (which include other drugstore lines, as well as high-end companies such as Dior, M.A.C., Channel, and Lancôme) was 1.11 ppm.

To put these numbers in context, the Environmental Protection Agency’s allowable maximum contaminant level (MCL) is 15 ppm in drinking water; 100 ppm in children’s toys. (There is currently no such regulation for makeup by either the EPA or the FDA.)

Consumer advocacy organizations like the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics have stricter standards, however. They’d like to see all MCLs set at zero, or as close to it as possible.

“There is no safe level of lead exposure,” Campaign co-founder Stacy Malkan