Natural Lipstick and Edible Ingredients

Women consume at least 4 lbs of lipstick in a lifetime. Most of the lipsticks we use everyday contain petroleum by products like mineral oil, synthetic chemicals, dyes and fragrances. In some cases we really don't know exactly what is in our lipsticks.

The "trade secret loophole" allows skin care manufacturers to use a generic term like fragrance and not say what that means. (Lipsticks can be made quite simply. There are three main ingredients, wax, oil and coloring. Most lipsticks are made with many other ingredients but these are the essential ones.

Natural lipstick usually contains beeswax or plant wax like carnauba or candellila, which give it body, oils like jojoba, sunflower or chamomile for spreadability and natural pigments or coloring.

Pigments can be organic or natural herbs(turmeric), vegetables (beets), insect (carmine or cochineal, a pigment from crushed beetles) or mineral based (titanium dioxide or iron oxide). FDA approved colors like D&C Red or FD&C Yellow, though approved are not usually used.