Making up in safety is not always child's play

Most parents don't realise some cosmetics can contain high levels of potentially toxic ingredients, including lead and cadmium, writes PRISCILLA LYNCH

“Dear Santa, I would like a doll, a doctor outfit, and some make-up so I can look just like Mummy.”

LETTERS SIMILAR to this from children all over Ireland are currently winging their way to the North Pole and, no doubt, many will be lucky enough to get what they want for Christmas, but in some instances this could be dangerous for their health.

While Irish parents are generally aware of the issues surrounding toy safety, most don’t realise that children’s make-up and face paints, while seemingly a bit of harmless fun for home dress-up time, can contain high levels of potentially toxic ingredients, including lead and cadmium.

In addition, cosmetics as a whole are the number one source of poisoning of children in the US, while in Ireland they were associated with 308 poisoning cases in 2009 involving children under the age of nine, according to the National Poisons Information Centre.

More than a dozen safety alerts concerning children’s make-up were been issued by the Department of Health between 2008 and 2010, following the discovery of high levels of lead, particularly in cheaper brand cosmetics and make-up sets from China.

The HSE South and HSE West public analyst’s laboratories are responsible for conducting public chemical testing for the Republic. Results from one cosmetic brand tested in HSE West in 2009 showed lead concentrations reaching more than 500 times the acceptable limit.

While there are no specific limits set for heavy metals in the EU Cosmetics Directive or regulations, lead and its compounds are prohibited unless present in traces which are technically unavoidable in manufacturing and not liable to cause damage to human health.

In line with many other European countries, 20mg/kg has been adopted as an interim limit in the Republic. Most samples tested by Irish laboratories last year were well within this limit, the vast majority under 5mg/kg, but one sample contained 10,000mg/kg of lead.

In 2008, 96 cosmetic sub-samples tested positive for lead levels in excess of the 20mg/kg, 11 of which were over 500mg/kg. For the first 10 months of 2009 one sub-sample analysed in the HSE South laboratory tested more than the 20mg/kg limit. For the whole of 2009, 31 tested components in the HSE West laboratory exceeded the lead limit, while three sub-samples contained cadmium levels greater than 5mg/kg, the limit set by Germany.

The lead was mostly found to be present in cheap children’s eyeshadows and lipsticks, while last year an orange lipstick component in a children’s cosmetic sample was found to contain an excessive level of cadmium and an investigation was launched.

That said, much progress has been made in the past three years to develop and strengthen the control of cosmetics products in Ireland.

Among the most recent measures, the Department of Health has formed a cosmetic safety steering group whose members include environmental health officers and officials from the Irish Medicines Board (IMB), HSE and National Consumer Agency. The HSE has a cosmetics control group and a steering group to co-ordinate testing and examine specific cases with a risk to health,. Work is also ongoing on cosmetics standards, and at European level, the establishment of a network of official cosmetic analysis laboratories is proposed.

On October 1st, the IMB was formally made the competent authority in the State for cosmetic products, replacing the Department of Health. This decision was prompted by the need to facilitate a more pro-active approach to regulation of the cosmetics sector, particularly in light of forthcoming changes in the legislative requirements governing these products.

That aside, the HSE West public analyst’s laboratory has noted that while it and the Cork laboratory put in place a national cosmetics testing programme for 2009, “this programme is necessarily limited in scope due to the limited resources available”.

At present, there are no laboratory staff with dedicated responsibility for cosmetic analysis and, given the current economic climate, the provision of additional resources for the purpose of cosmetic analysis looks unlikely. As a result, the testing service will be limited.

So when purchasing that stocking filler for a young child, parents and relatives need to pause for thought if they are considering buying children’s make-up.

Rapex is the EU rapid alert system for notifying hazards/risks associated with cosmetics and other consumer products including toys. In Ireland, these notices and product recalls are issued through the National Consumer Agency’s website, consumerconnect.ie