Latest Fact Sheet

Season 3, Ep 5 - Make Up

· Makeup has been used for years. There is evidence that Egyptians were using makeup as early as 4000BC.

· Mineral makeup is a popular trend now but minerals have been popular in makeup since the 1970s. Ancient Egyptians also used minerals for makeup.

· Talc is a naturally occurring mineral – it is used in foundations, powders, blushes and eyeshadow as well as being the primary ingredient in talcum powder. Talc is the softest mineral of all and can be scratched by a fingernail.

· It’s thought that makeup may help women appear more attractive in two ways – one is that it may help make faces appear more symmetrical (facial symmetry is associated with attractiveness). The second is that makeup use can increase facial contrast – higher facial contrast is associated with more feminine faces.

· The FDA tested a range of lipsticks which were bought in 2007 and found that all twenty of them contained some level of lead. However, the FDA deemed the levels of lead did not constitute a safety concern.

· We tested a range of lipsticks found in New Zealand – there was ten time sless lead in the lipstick with the most lead when compared to the lipstick with the most lead found by the FDA in the US.

· Nanotechnology is the development of particles that are between 1nm and 100nm wide on at least one dimension. In contrast, a human hair is 50,000-80,000nm wide.

· Nanoparticles can occur in nature. It’s possible that we have been exposed to nanoparticles in makeup for years – when minerals like talc are ground up to be used in makeup a small percentage may end up being nanosized.

· There are concerns about nanoparticles being used in cosmetics such as makeup because nanosized versions of substances act differently to the normal sized version.

· Eye makeup can become a breeding ground for bacteria. Although products contain antibacterials and preservatives, over time these become less effective.

· Time isn’t the only thing that can result in eye cosmetics such as bacteria becoming contaminated with bacteria – other causes of contamination are keeping products in warm places – such as the glove box in summer – which make the environment more suitable for bacteria growth.

· Sharing eye makeup isn’t a good idea either – the bacteria that occur naturally on another person’s body may be hazardous to you.

· A US study looking into bacteria contamination of test products in department store found that on high traffic days (like Saturdays), 100% of the makeup testers were contaminated with bacteria – some test products were contaminated with e. coli, herpes or conjunctivitis bacteria.

It is a good idea to replace eye makeup every 3-6 months to ensure that the risk of it being contaminated with bacteria is low.