Iran’s Poisoned Cosmetics

Every few hours she goes to the mirror and refreshes the rouge on her lips. “I am in the habit of licking my lips,” she says, “but then I don’t like my lips to be colorless.” Elnaz, 22, loves make-up, like many others of her age. “I think that when you can be prettier, then why not use it? Even the religious ones say that god loves beauty.” 

Elnaz is not particularly interested in the news, so when I ask her whether she has heard about the harm that can be done by the excessive use of cosmetics she says, “I don’t think a lot about it. If we think too much about the harm in everything we do, then we wouldn’t be able to drink the water or breathe the air either.”

According to one study, Iran is the second biggest consumer of cosmetics in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates is third. 

Skin specialists have repeatedly warned about the potential harmful effects of the excessive use of cosmetics. On February 17, health official Karim Rezaee raised the issue again, pointing out that each year, on average, almost two kilos of lipstick finds its way into the digestive systems of women who use make-up — though he did not give any government-endorsed information about the claim about specific amounts. Because a lot of the cosmetics for sale in Iran are smuggled in to the country and do not meet health standards, they often contain dangerous carcinogens. For example, lipstick tends to contain high amounts of lead [Persian link]. Rezaee’s comments were certainly newsworthy, with large amounts of people linking to the report on the Iranian Labour News Agency website and sharing it across social networks.

Seven Years of Consuming Lead

Elnaz says she had heard about the lead in lipstick. But when I read her the recent news update, she said, “Then I am done for! I have been swallowing lead for the past six or seven years. But believe me: The lead in the air is much higher than the lead in our lipstick.” 

But a skin specialist told IranWire that although car exhaust contains some lead, as does some foods and other products, the lead from excessive use of cosmetics can be particularly dangerous, going well beyond what is considered a manageable or safe amount for a human being to handle. “Long exposure to lead can result in kidney malfunction, gout, convulsion, blindness, weakness of the muscles and even brain damage,” the expert told me. “It can cause miscarriages as well.”

The expert points to guidance set out by the United States Food and Drug Administration that limit the amount of lead permitted in cosmetics products for lips to 10 ppm (parts per million) — so no more than 10 milligrams per one kilo. The agency’s site has also published a table that details the lead content in 400 brand-name lipsticks. “The more trustworthy the brand, the less lead content there is,” the expert said. “But how can one be sure about the lead content when a large portion of cosmetics bought in Iran are fake?” According to Iranian health official Karim Rezaee, Iranians consume more than $4.3 billion worth of cosmetics per year, around 85 percent of which are smuggled in. The majority of them are substandard and unhealthy.

Some Fakes are Better than Others

Elnaz says she has noticed that some of the cosmetics she uses display a well-known brand name on the label, but the quality varies. “I used Etude’s face cleaner. It was excellent when I started using it, but after a while the quality really took a dive. A cosmetics salesperson told me later that counterfeit products have entered the market.” But she says she trusts the cosmetics store where she now buys her make-up. “The shop is very crowded. If, for example, you ask for L'Oréal mascara, the owner asks you whether you want the genuine one or a fake. Then he shows you three L'Oréal mascaras. They look all the same to the customer but then he explains that they vary in price substantially. The most expensive is the authentic one and the first two are counterfeits, but he says that the second one is better than the first. He always tells the truth.”

I get the shop’s phone number from Elnaz. The store is located in the basement of a shopping center in western Tehran. How can I be sure that the brands I buy are not counterfeit, I ask the owner, a Mr. Sedaghat. “The genuine merchandise is expensive,” he says. “They are brought to me from America and France in suitcases, usually by my relatives, but of course there are counterfeits in the market as well. I always compare the samples with the original. The people who make the fakes usually pay little attention to details. They just copy the general identifiers. I always find the inconsistencies and I am honest with my customers. I tell them, for example, that a mascara is a fake, but that I do carry the real one. Sometimes I don’t have the genuine one but I do have two counterfeits where one has a better quality than the other. I tell the customer about it.”

The man in the shop didn’t know much detail about the ingredients in the cosmetics, although he had heard that some products contained lead. He also knew a lot about which ingredients used in cosmetics are more consistent, which ones do not smudge and which ones are approved by his customers. “Not all the counterfeits are bad,” he says. “Sometimes a mascara pretending to be L'Oréal or Revlon works better than the original and makes eyelashes longer. I explain all this to my clientele and that is why my shop is always crowded.” He is very happy with his job. “I have regular customers. Some come to shop twice a week, some every week, some every other week and some at least once a month.”

An Iranian parliament research center reported last year that in 2013, an average of 2.5 percent of household incomes was spent on cosmetics. And Rezaee said that, per capita, Iranian women spent around $155 per year on cosmetics, which comes close to 30 percent of their disposable income.

You Get what you Pay for

“My understanding is that many women spend 50 to 70 percent of their salaries on cosmetics,” said Mr. Sedaghat. “There is an old saying: you get what you pay for,” he said when I mentioned the news about the amount of lead in cosmetics. “And I believe you are safer if you spend more money to buy better cosmetics with more reliable brand names. But for women, more important than lead is how the cosmetics work. Does the mascara smudge? Does the face powder stays put? And so on.”

But lead content in fake brand-name cosmetics is not the only danger cosmetics can pose. In an interview with Iranian Republic News Agency in August 2016, Safoora Mohebbi, vice-president of the Nutrition and Medication Department at Fasa Medical School in Fars province, raised the issue of levels of carcinogen toxins Aflatoxin and Parabens in counterfeit cosmetic and health products [Persian link]. “Tests on unauthorized and counterfeit cosmetics have shown that many of them contained poisonous ingredients or ingredients that had gone beyond their sell-by dates,” Mohebbi said. “They contain unsafe and high levels of Aflatoxin B.” 

Aflatoxin toxins are produced by certain molds, are absorbed through the skin, and can cause liver cancer. Parabens are preservatives used in cosmetics and health products and have been deemed to be safe at certain levels but if the body is “overloaded” with them, it can result in a hormonal imbalance that in some cases can trigger reactions such as increasing breast cell division and the growth of tumors. Mohebbi also advised women to pay attention to the chemical ingredients of lotions, as heavy metals used in them can seriously damage the skin.

In his recent statement, Rezaee also reported an increase in cancers of the abdomen, ovaries, womb, bladder and skin, as well as in infertility as a result of excessive use of cosmetics by women.

But so many people who use cosmetics do not pay much attention to these dire warnings. And Elnaz is one of them.“I don’t think anybody cares about the people,” she says. “Probably they say this to scare women into using less make-up. Morality Patrols didn’t work so perhaps this is a new way of controlling women. Otherwise our food and air is even more contaminated. Right?” Then she laughs again.