Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Forbes tells us that the latest hot tip for saving the planet from climate change and unsustainable resource usage is to avoid red lipstick.
According to Forbes;
Want To Combat Climate Change? Give Up Red Lipstick, Drink Local, and Fly Direct (No Problem!)
As a climate change advisor at the United Nations, 35-year-old Cassie Flynn spends her days talking about hefty issues. There are rising sea levels wiping out entire countries, droughts impacting the food security of an entire region, and mega-storms like Superstorm Sandy becoming the norm. “It’s very hard not to feel overwhelmed by this,” she said. “You want to do nothing or leave it to the CEOs or world leaders or people having these large conversations.”
…
Deciding to show regular people how they can help, Flynn started an initiative called Climate Winners that officially launched last night in a private room of Sixty Soho, a trendy downtown Manhattan Hotel. The idea is to use short videos and tidbits on Twitter TWTR +0.00% and Instagram to spread the word about small, easy changes everyone can make in their lives to mitigate climate change.
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Another video called “sustainable flirting” teaches you how to make better decisions when getting ready for a date. Both men and women use health and beauty products like makeup, deodorant, cologne, and hair products before leaving the house. These have chemicals that don’t break-up and accumulate in the ecosystem (“Talk about a shitty party,” says Flynn.) So it’s important to use products that are organic. “Ignore fancy words like ”natural’ or ‘hypoallergenic’ on the front and choose products with shorter lists of ingredients and avoid things that have synthetic fragrance,” she advises. Red lipsticks are particularly known for containing toxins like lead, so check if yours does!
Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alysonkrueger/2015/11/18/want-to-combat-climate-change-give-up-red-lipstick-drink-local-and-fly-direct-no-problem/
Consumer products do occasionally contain bizarre and dangerous additives. The “Mercurochrome” antiseptic my Mum used to apply to scrapes and cuts, contained substantial quantities of hideously toxic organic Mercury compounds. China in 2007 got into a lot of trouble, because some Chinese companies were adding anti-freeze to Toothpaste. Similarly, some European companies got busted in 1985 because they were adding anti-freeze to wine.
Here is what the FDA has to say about Mercury Lead and Lipstick.
What did FDA’s expanded survey reveal about lipsticks on the market?
The expanded survey found that the average lead concentration in the 400 lipsticks tested was 1.11 ppm, very close to the average of 1.07 ppm obtained in our initial survey. The results ranged from the detection limit of 0.026 ppm to the highest value of 7.19 ppm. For a table of the results, see FDA Analyses of Lead in Lipsticks – Expanded Survey. The expanded survey will be published in the May/June, 2012, issue of the Journal of Cosmetic Science.
Is there a safety concern about the lead levels FDA found in lipsticks?
No. We have assessed the potential for harm to consumers from use of lipstick containing lead at the levels found in both rounds of testing. Lipstick, as a product intended for topical use with limited absorption, is ingested only in very small quantities. We do not consider the lead levels we found in the lipsticks to be a safety concern. The lead levels we found are within the limits recommended by other public health authorities for lead in cosmetics, including lipstick.
Read more: http://www.fda.gov/Cosmetics/ProductsIngredients/Products/ucm137224.htm
Obviously its possible that any cosmetic products you buy in a third world flea market while on holiday might not meet FDA standards, though I don’t know why anyone would think this reservation would particularly apply to red lipstick. Having said that, I think its safe to say that on this issue at least, provided you exercise a modicum of caution about your sources, Cassie Flyn is talking nonsense.
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I can’t wait to get into an argument with a female enviro freak !!! I’ll just point at her and scream ” You’re wearing red lipstick, you’re destroying the world ” !
LOL
Teach them how to do math too….
“Every year, Americans use more than 90 million short tons of paper and paperboard.”
http://www.tappi.org/paperu/all_about_paper/faq.htm
“4 million tons of giftwrap and shopping bags: The trash generated from gift wrapping paper and shopping bags for special occasions in the US totals 4 million tons”
Facts on Holiday Waste. (2012). Retrieved from San Mateo County RecycleWorks Web site: http://www.recycleworks.org/resident/holiday_facts.html
4 million is NOT half of 90 million….so when the author of the Forbes article says “This can make a big difference considering half the paper Americans use a year is for gift wrapping (HALF!)” she isn’t even CLOSE to correct!
They walk among us.
Here’s your sign b***!
what about the red light outside brothels
Fly Direct?
Yeah like most people really prefer to make multiple layovers, increasing their travel time, increasing the risk of missing connections and suitcases.
I wonder if climate change adviser Cassie Flynn would prefer to get a real job, you know something actually productive, providing a real service or product, but the issue is climate advising probably pays embarrassingly well.
Among the many ingredients of lipstick are mineral oil and petrolatum, so when we phase out fossil fuels, these by-products of petroleum refining will no longer be available. Then we’ll have to go back to killing whales to get our cosmetics raw materials.
Makes sense to me.
Oh wait! I forgot! We’re supposed to protect whales..
You can’t tell the whores from the bores without red lipstick.
Tom, a woman who wears bright red lipstick ain’t gonna kiss you in public and ruin her perfect look? You want a woman who is smart enough to wear something that can take some lip action without looking like she just zombie fed. (Unless that’s what you like…)
It wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find out that right before the Roman Empire fell, the red lip colorings of the time were being dissed by ‘right-thinking’ Roman women.
I fear Flynn is the canary in the coal mine, so to speak.
“right thinking” Roman women?
It is my understanding that red lipstick was a marker for a street woman of hire for certain kinds of work.
Right thinking Roman women will likely be insulted; at least until Caligula’s time.
I thought towards the end, the Roman morals and values were all topsy-turvy, ATheoK. The single quotes were my indication that ‘right-thinking’ women were much the opposite of what they were in the past.
With that in mind, I was reading Cassie Flynn’s pronouncements as someone who perceives herself as being a ‘right-thinking’ woman in today’s times, in which case we are all in deep doo-doo.
My apologies H.R.:
That remark of hers flew past me, as I perceive Cassie as borderline psychotic and incapable of determining right or wrong.
I should have connected the dots better.
I agree with your last statement completely.
Lordy.
Such the loaded comment 🙂
Pam can say in one word what the rest of us need many to say. She is the Chuck Norris of communication.
Reading through the FDA list of analyzed lipsticks, the color red is found from those lipsticks with lead traces below the detectable limits throughout the list.
Not only is red lipstick not a metric for lead content, there is no rationale listed for why she believes red lipstick affects climate change…
Looks like someone should tell Cassie (and maybe the UN) about Snopes. Dangerous levels of lead in red lipstick? Snopes: Mostly False.
Reading the discussion there about lead levels and FDA oversight, the claim is completely false.
I have always been against ladies using red lipstick because most of them are unaware that it has been used through the ages to draw atttention to ………….! (In a similar way to having bees sting their lips!).
As a man (there I go hoping again!), I believe that the most natural and alluring sight in the world is a lady au naturale (i.e, nothing false but just as Nature meant her to be)
+ 1000 ( and with the support of my wife!).
“There are rising sea levels wiping out entire countries, droughts impacting the food security of an entire region, and mega-storms like Superstorm Sandy becoming the norm …” and it all could have been avoided by taking such simple everyday steps, I blame Madonna.
http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Madonna+UK+Gala+Premiere+W+E+jA1EJikqVgel.jpg
That ain’t no “Madonna”.
he has to go in a health shop to buy one for his wife !!
anyway – no more COP21 – it’s over now
There was a young man from Poole
Who complained of red rings on his ****.
Said the doctor, a cynic
“Get out of my clinic!
Just wipe off the lipstick, you fool.”
Sindoor, the red material applied by indian women to their hair parting, was traditionally made from red mercury sulphide. This mercury sindoor was being used quite recently.
Probably hundreds of millions of women have been chronically poisoned in this way over the centuries.
Ras Sindoor is still being produced as an Ayurvedic Medicine in India. It contains almost wholly mercury sulphide. Several cases of severe poisoning have come to the attention of western hospitals when people obtained such medicines in the west, or returned from india with mercury poisoning.
Such mercury containing medicines are listed on eBay here in the UK, even now.
If the following article is to be believed then sindoor manafacturers in the modern age seem to have shifted over to the use of red lead oxide.
Which has the advantage of being cheaper than mercury sulphide.
So, if anyone wants to slowly poison themselves, then why not do it at a low low prices.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Govt-decides-to-crack-down-on-toxic-sindoor/articleshow/10360575.cms
On the other hand, if you mark your hair parting with red mercury sulphide, there is a good chance that any lice, nits or other bugs will be killed off before you are harmed.
“… rising sea levels wiping out entire countries…” Name just one country that has been wiped out.
“…mega-storms like Superstorm Sandy becoming the norm…” Evidence of increased frequency please.
BS from beginning to end. Think I may visit and to some stirring…
Atlantis
OK, I didn’t specify real country. Lulz.
Has anyone ever counted the number of nutters employed by us at the UN.
Can’t we defund the UN? Close it down and start again you know , like the League of Nations
My suggestion is to move it lock, stock and barril to Burkina Faso…
Easy way to find out.
First, find out how many people work for the UN.
Second, use that number.
MarkW commented: “…number of nutters employed by us at the UN….find out how many people work for the UN….”
I don’t understand why the UN has been allowed to stray so far from it’s original intent. Here is a group of people hired, or appointed, and handsomely salaried like any business that has inserted itself into making decisions of governance and law into the world. Make no mistake despite the UN claim that “it only makes suggestions” what their intent is. Read their documents carefully and you will find numerous “suggestions” that only the UN is capable of governing the world and what needs to be done to make that happen. Only suggestions mind you until countries one by one surrender their sovereignty and we have an EU on steroids.
“Consumer products do occasionally contain bizarre and dangerous additives”
Its not a joke…BBC Fake Britain last week is a case in point.
Every now and again the BBC gets to be useful because it reported suspect goods seized at one of our dwindling and vastly over loaded ports. A good few tonnes of stuff including lipstick that contained amongst other things…paint stripper. Piles of counterfeit handbags and the like also.
Anybody hear the BBC World Service from their huge central offices in Lagos last night. A special program for the run up to Paris COP and advertised as exactly that. Climate change and how it’s literally washing away Nigeria. Well, it likely would do if you de-forest the place. Children singing climate change songs? Message – please remit huge cheques/checks asap!
Many moons ago I worked as an electronics design/prototype and test engineer. The small team of us would be tasked with building and testing little bits of circuitry and obviously involved a fair bit of soldering.
At the time I smoked (it was still OK to smoke indoors then) but a good friend and colleague didn’t care for nicotine and he actually used lengths of solder wire to relieve stress & tedium or as a source of inspiration.
He fiddled with the stuff endlessly and sucked on it the same as me or you might suck on or chew up a pencil.
This was when solder contained 40, 50 or 60% lead.
30 years later he’s still alive and very well.
(As I understand it, Lead metal itself is pretty harmless, it’s when it becomes or is Lead Oxide that it turns into a killer)
There are rising levels of pure fantasy wiping out entire brains
How many cuts and scrapes does one have to have for mercurochrome to be toxic? I know mercury can be additive, but really? In my case, there’s more concern over lipstick because I like the taste and chew it off my lips. I gave up wearing it years ago.
These nonsensical “little things” you can do to help the planet fly directly in the face of the “serious threat” of global warming. If little things will fix it, it’s not that serious. Mostly, these are just silly ways to make people feel better about their “environmental quotients”. They do virtually nothing to help the planet or anything else.
Just as quick observation. There is a difference between non stop flights and direct flights. Non stop is just that. Direct means that you don’t need to change planes when they land at an intermediate airport. The alarmists don’t seem to get anything right sometimes.
Ahhhhh. Since I never wore red lipstick or any lipstick . . . . .
But, I do appreciate red lipstick as a highlighter of a woman’s charms. I will endeavor to complement a woman who has done so.
Seriously, the UN is stupid.
John
Praise the avancements in equipment. Every year you can detect more and more stuff that you have never seen before in the products. And when you detect something you have never detected before, it must be dangerous. The most scary substance is the one you have never seen. But just wait a few years.
Exactly!! It’s the full employment Act for EPA.