Makeup Product Ingredients
Makeup products are a great way to enhance a woman’s natural beauty. By simply applying a few colors here and there for emphasis, a little bit of concealer below the eyes to hide those dark circles, or foundation to vanish those blemishes, your pretty face can become ever prettier.
Evidence suggests that the first makeup was used in Egypt around 5,500 years ago. The peoples of Ancient Greece and Rome also used colors in an attempt to look more attractive. In the Old Testament, there are references to women painting their eyelids and using various beauty treatments. In more recent times, Queen Victoria declared make ups improper. As did Adolf Hitler, who said face painting was for clowns, not the women of the Master Race.
Regardless of whether the ancient women of Egypt, Greece, and Rome are right and Queen Victoria and Hitler are wrong, the fact is, in nearly all developed or developing countries, makeups are in widespread use and users are getting younger and younger. Another fact is, most users do not know what this stuff they put on their faces are made of or the ingredients they contain.
In ancient Egypt and Rome, their cosmetics often contained mercury and lead. Cleopatra’s lipstick was made of crushed carmine beetles with ants for a base. Until recent times, cerebrosides (cells extracted from the nervous system of swine or cattle) was used in skin-care products. It was only after the breakout of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, that that this was discontinued. Colors for eye products still take their cue from Cleopatra. They are still produced using the dye carmine that is extracted from beetles. The albumen in chicken eggs, processed and spray-dried, is used in hydrating peel-off masks.
The ignorance of the side effects of their contents have led to deformities, blindness, and in extreme cases, death. As recent as the early 1900s, the mascara Lush Lure has caused blindness. The fact that, until today, the Food and Drug administration cannot regulate cosmetics apart from color additives before they are released into the market, should caution you before using any new product in the market. Read the labels and ingredients carefully. Find out if there is anything in the product that could adversely affect you. Who knows what kind of weird ingredients are in the makeup. What you want is beauty, not rashes or swelling. And certainly not deformities or blindness.
