3 Tips for Choosing the Best Organic Lipstick

You already eat organic foods and are pretty careful about what you put in your body. This year, you’re detoxing your beauty bag and making more intentional cosmetic item purchases. Part of glowing up your makeup is definitely choosing organic, green cosmetics, and that includes lipstick. There’s just one problem: you really love your non-organic brand of lip color.

We get it. Change isn’t easy, and when we find a lipstick we love, we’ll wear it even after the shade is long out of style. The problem is, the ingredients in your non-organic lip color may be doing you more harm than good. Luckily, you can make the transition to organic lipstick incredibly easy, and find a lipstick you love even more than your non-organic brand.

The green makeup artists here at The Detox Market scour the industry’s best for the very best in organic lipsticks. They test and use them daily to determine which formulas work, and which fall short. No matter how clean the ingredients are, if our artists tell us they don’t perform, we simply don’t carry them. Meticulous? You better believe it.

If you’re not convinced you actually need organic lipstick, we can help you make that decision.

We’re here to tell you what’s in your non-organic lipstick, the risks associated with those ingredients, and how you can choose the very best organic lipstick that’s right for you.

Why Do I Need Organic Lipstick?

You eat a lot of lipstick. Not seven pounds like the old internet rumor suggested, but you do ingest a lot of what goes on your lips, and not just from licking them. Your lips are mucous membranes, and very porous. It’s very easy for the material you put on your lips to pass into your body.

If you think you’re safe wearing your old brand, think again.

Choosing an organic lipstick is important because of the ingredients commonly found in non-organic lip colors, and you’ll probably be pretty surprised to learn what’s actually in your favorite shade of non-organic red.

• Lead . Lead shouldn’t be in lipstick, or in any products we use for that matter. Lead is a known neurotoxin and unsafe for us, even in very small doses. In fact, the CDC says there is no evidence that any amount of lead is safe for humanly consumed products.
  
  Lead isn’t intentionally placed in your lip color, it ends up in lipstick when the raw materials that make up your lipstick contain lead. Unfortunately, the FDA still allows lipstick to contain up to 10 ppm (parts per milligram) of lead, so it’s completely legal for the lipstick you wear to contain it.
  
  
• Parabens . Parabens are used in nearly every beauty and cosmetic product available. Sometimes used as a mild fragrance, the real job of a paraben is as a preservative. Parabens can extend the shelf life of a product for months at a time.
  
  The problem with parabens is that they are able to pass through the skin barrier and enter our bloodstream. Parabens are known endocrine disruptors, and can even interact with your hormone levels. Parabens are even suspected to produce developmental and reproductive toxicity, and have been classified as a carcinogen.

In addition to these two bad offenders, there are other ingredients in your non-organic lipstick that aren’t doing you any favors.

What Makes Up Lipstick?

Lipstick is essentially made of three main components: wax, oil, and pigment, but companies often choose waxes, oils, and pigments that contain harsh chemicals when formulating non-organic brands of lipstick.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Wax. The component of lipstick that makes it glide across your lips is wax. Without wax, your lipstick would essentially glob into clusters of oily pigment on your lips, and would be very difficult to smooth down.
  
  The waxes used in lipstick are often petroleum-derived. Two of the most common waxes used are paraffin and microcrystalline. These two ingredients have been classified as carcinogens, and their use in cosmetics is banned in both Canada and Europe, though they are still allowable in cosmetics in the United States.
  
  
• Oil. The oil in your lipstick is what keeps your lips hydrated. Lipstick can be notoriously drying, so the addition of oils is necessary to keep your lips from chapping and feeling uncomfortable. Lanolin is an example of an ethically sourced animal by-product secreted from sheep wool, and it’s used in the Osmia Lip Repair treatment alongside manuka honey and myrrh extract.
  
  Mineral oil and petroleum are commonly used in lipstick as emollients. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) rates most of these oils a level 3 or higher, meaning they pose a toxic threat to consumers when included in products like lipstick.
  
  Again, these are ingredients that are largely restricted in other countries but still fully allowable in the United States.
  
  
• Pigment. Pigment is what gives your favorite shade of red it’s bright depth and vibrance. While the FDA is more particular about color additives in cosmetics than they are other ingredients, they still allow a number of pigment-based ingredients that are harsh and harmful.
  
  Coal Tar, a byproduct of coal production, is often used as a pigment in lipsticks under the names FD&C, or D&C, followed by a color. The EWG rates coal tar as a 10, which is the highest, most dangerous level a single ingredient can be rated. Their research reveals coal tar is incredibly hazardous, carcinogenic, and linked to fertility issues.

Thankfully, you don’t have to continue yourself at risk by using lipsticks that contain these harsh ingredients.

The Detox Market offers the best organic lipsticks that are free from toxic chemicals and full of intentional, nourishing ingredients that help keep your lips looking and feeling fabulous. Here’s how to choose the best one.

How To Choose the Best Organic Lipstick

You will never be short on options when you make the switch to organic lipstick. More than just being cleaner, greener products, these lipsticks often outperform their non-organic counterparts.

We recommend narrowing down your search for the perfect organic lipstick by using these four categories:

1. Style. Lipstick is the classic, but what if you prefer a little more gloss? Determining the type of lip product you want is the first step in finding the best organic lipstick. No matter how well a product performs, a product that isn’t right for you won’t be the best for you.
   
   The Detox Market offers lip products ranging from balms to glosses, matte finish lipsticks to stains and everything in between. No matter what you love on your lips, we’ve got it.
   
   
2. Ingredients. It goes without saying, ingredients matter. What goes into a product is equally important as what is kept out. That said, look for products that contain the cleanest, greenest ingredients possible.
   
   Aside from avoiding toxic ingredients, you should look for ingredients that are as close to their natural state as possible. The less an ingredient has been altered, the more natural benefit it can provide you when you use the product.
   
   Some lipsticks we offer are even made with ingredients so close to their natural state they are referred to as “living” ingredients.
   
   
3. Responsible production. It’s great for a product to be toxin-free and full of intentional, safe ingredients, but if the product isn’t being sourced responsibly or is being tested on animals, using it only puts the environment at risk.
   
   While most organic lipstick brands choose to hold themselves to higher standards of production and ingredient sourcing, there are always outliers. Make sure you research the brand and find out what their manufacturing, product development, and animal testing practices are, so you can make sure the products you are purchasing are animal friendly and environmentally safe.
   
   
4. Performance Reviews. One of the best ways to determine how a lipstick performs is to read the reviews. If a product has consistently poor reviews, chances are it isn’t a great fit.
   
   The Detox Market is insistent that the products we carry perform as they say they will. It’s why we test them repeatedly and follow up with customer reviews.

Do Organic Lipsticks Work as Good as Non-Organic Lipsticks?

Yes! The organic and clean beauty product industry has rapidly advanced in the past few years, making it easy to switch out non-organic beauty products for cleaner, greener, better beauty.

Organic lipsticks not only work as good as non-organic lipsticks, they typically outperform.

Maybe it’s because they have to work harder to get the same amount of credit, or maybe it’s because the ingredients are just superior and better for you. Either way, switching to organic lipstick is a great way to remove toxins from your beauty bag and live a cleaner, greener life.

Sources:

https://www.safecosmetics.org/get-the-facts/regulations/us-laws/lead-in-lipstick/

https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/Lead_FactSheet.html

https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetic-products/limiting-lead-lipstick-and-other-cosmetics

https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ingredients/703937-methylparaben/

https://www.safecosmetics.org/get-the-facts/regulations/international-laws/

https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ingredients/703977-MINERAL_OIL/