The average woman will eat about 350 grams of lipstick in her life—and it could be dangerous to her health!

Woman do not consume 6 to 10 pounds of lipstick per year, regardless of what the Internet might have you believe. These figures are impossible to achieve, short of having the ladies feasting on bars of lipstick daily. A more accurate figure is 24 milligrams per day, found by studies done in 2002. Assuming an average application span of 55 years and assuming the ladies apply lipstick for only 5 days a week, this results in around 350 grams of lipstick ingested over a lifetime.

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However, recent studies have shown that even this small amount could be dangerous, depending on the composition of the lipstick itself.

Lipstick is primarily made up of waxes, fats and oils, but also contain a vast array of other chemicals that control the colour, flavour, stay-fastness etc. While the list of chemicals is diverse, of particular interest to the 2013 study was the metals found. Metal contents of cosmetics are not regulated in the United States and the study evaluated the levels of lead, aluminium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, manganese, nickel and titanium found in a number of brands of lipstick.

Given the daily intake, and relating the amounts of these metals contained in the products tested, it was found that many products expose women to higher than acceptable levels of metal intake. What is worse though is that companies are not required to list their metal contents because the FDA does not regulate metal levels in cosmetics. Thus, the consumer has no way of knowing what metals are in the lipsticks and in what concentrations.

So, while dark red glossy lips might rev your man up, you might want to pause for thought before applying that fourth touchup for the day.

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