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The Six Craziest Things In Your Cosmetics
Quick disclaimer: We are patently against fearmongering, so don't anyone start panicking. That being said, when you look at some of the ingredients used in cosmetics and body-care products, it raises some serious questions of the "How is that even possible?" variety. Well, here's how: The cosmetics industry is self-policed, operating with very little regulatory oversight. As such, it is free to use just about anything it wants in its products, no matter how bizarre (or gross, or dangerous).
As the FDA literature states: "With the exception of color additives and a few prohibited ingredients, a cosmetic manufacturer may, on his own responsibility, use essentially any raw material as a cosmetic ingredient and market the product without approval."
Read that last bit again, and then click "Next" above to start reading the list.
This is a series inspired by No More Dirty Looks: The Truth About Your Beauty Products and the Ultimate Guide to Safe and Clean Cosmetics, a book by GOOD's features editor Siobhan O'Connor and her co-author Alexandra Spunt.
Read more on their blog
Illustrations by Brianna Harden
Tar: Made from bituminous coal, tar is used as an active ingredient to treat scalp problems like psoriasis and dandruff, and is also used in synthetic dyes. Besides the fact that it smells like a melting parking lot, it's also a carcinoge
Lead: The FDA did a test recently to check up on activist and scientist claims that lipstick was all too often contaminated with lead, which is toxic to humans. Guess what they found? Every single lipstick they tested had lead in it. Some
Mercury: We all know it contaminates our fish, but how many of us know it's in our personal care products, too? It's occasionally used on purpose, and can be found listed on some labels of mascaras as thimerosal (a compound that contains
Formaldehyde: Yes, the stuff they use to embalm corpses also sneaks into beauty products, sometimes as an active ingredient—as with nail polish, antiperspirant, and the ill-fated Brazilian blowout that inspired 
Antifreeze: To be fair, that's not its chemical name, and it's hardly the worst of the bunch by a longshot. Propylene glycol is used in everything from shampoo and deodorant to moisturizer and makeup and indeed, it is one of the less scar
Crushed beetles: OK, crushed beetles are weirder. Carmine, or cochineal, is the ingredient that creates the reddest reds in lipstick. It's a pigment that's nearly impossible to duplicate without crushing pregnant dead beetles and turning
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