Book review

There’s Lead in Your Lipstick: Toxins in Our Everyday Body Care and How to Avoid Them

by Gillian Deacon Penguin, 2011, 338 pages, $26.00 ISBN: 978-0-4-317250-5

In 1949 my mother’s high school class in Quebec was visited by a lecturing chemist who warned about the poisons contained in cosmetics. Surely, we must know more now than we did then. Have times changed? Apparently not. Perhaps it’s time to pull our pretty heads out of the sand and listen up.

Take parabens, for example: ubiquitous preservatives that have been linked to breast cancer, reproductive toxicity, endocrine disruption, and more. Conventional hand lotion is full of parabens. Don’t use hand lotion? Check your bubble bath, eyeliner, and shampoo choices against author Gill Deacon’s list of safe and scary brands. Go on, I dare you.

Men use personal hygiene products too, and while this book speaks to both genders, its cover and title make no bones about the intended audience. First, its readers will be the many thousands who already know Gill Deacon as best-selling author of Green for Life and host of The Gill Deacon Show on CBC TV. Next, the book will find readers who are curious to know if it’s really true that there is lead (or other proven toxins) in their shampoo, lipstick, eyeliner, and sunscreen.

There’s Lead in Your Lipstick should be read by every woman, and the message carried with us wherever we go. This knowledge needs to be at hand for women (especially young women) to arm themselves against unnecessary exposure to a multitude of harmful toxins.

Thanks to Gill Deacon for a straight-talking book that lays the facts on the page about just why such harmful substances are allowed to be present in common body care products—and explains how to avoid them.

Yes, there are alternatives, and Deacon is not shy about mentioning these. She recommends safer brand choices for hair, face, eyes, lips, teeth, armpits, hands, feet, and skin. We learn what to watch for, and with help from Deacon’s user-friendly wallet card it becomes easier to shop with confidence.

Shopping for healthier options with There’s Lead in Your Lipstick fresh in your mind is a good way to avoid toxins. Being naturally beautiful has never been so easy.