Is Your Lipstick Safe? What Ends Up On Your Lips All Day (2026)

By Shannon Nicole, Founder, Switch to America · September 1, 2026
Published September 1, 2026 · Last updated September 1, 2026

What did the study actually find?

Quick answer: about half the lip products. Worst in the long wear ones.

The team tested 231 products bought in shops here and in Canada. Foundation, concealer, eye makeup, lip products.

They measured total fluorine. It is the quick way to flag PFAS without testing for hundreds of them one at a time.

Lip products came back at 48 percent high. Foundations and eye products were worse.

Waterproof mascara ran high too. Same reason.

This was not a fringe study. Its journal picked it as one of the five best papers it ran that year.

The number is not the point. Most of the tubes that tested high did not list PFAS at all.

Why would anyone put forever chemicals in a lipstick?

Quick answer: because they are what makes it stay on.

PFAS shrug off water and oil, and they hold a thin smooth film in place for hours.

That is the whole appeal.

Which is what long wear lipstick is sold on. Eight hour wear, transfer proof, kiss proof.

The promise on the front and the chemistry in the tube are one thing said twice.

So the ad was never lying to you. It said this one stays put. It just never said what makes it stay put.

That is why they are called forever chemicals. They do not break down easily, not in a landfill, not in water, and not in you.

Here is the part that decides it for me.

If they use it and do not print it, turning the tube over gets you nowhere. Half the products in that study would have passed your check in the shop.

What else is in the tube?

Quick answer: color, wax, oil, fragrance, and whatever came along for the ride.

PFAS, the forever chemicals

This is what makes it last. High fluorine showed up in 48 percent of lip products. Across everything they screened, only 8 percent listed any of it as an ingredient.

Lead

Nobody adds lead on purpose. It rides in with the color.

There is a federal paper suggesting a top level of 10 parts per million in lip products.

Watch that word. Suggesting. It is advice, and nobody has to meet it. Nobody is checking your tube either. The company selling it is the only one deciding what goes in.

Fragrance

One word covering a whole mix. The rules here let them print that one word and stop, because the recipe counts as a trade secret.

So the tube can say fragrance and mean thirty things. And it sits on skin you lick all day.

Parabens

These keep a tube good for two years in a warm handbag. They are allowed here.

Europe restricted some and banned others outright. Same tube, two answers, and you live on the side that says yes.

Wax and oil base

The dull part of the tube. Nobody argues about this bit.

Here is what is in your handbag, and what each row does not prove.

What is in it	The concern	Named authority and year	What it does NOT mean
PFAS	High fluorine in 48% of lip products. Only 8% of all 231 listed any	University of Notre Dame, 2021	Fluorine is an indicator, not a measure of harm to a person
Lead	Trace contaminant in color additives	US federal guidance, 10 ppm suggested maximum	Guidance, not an enforceable limit, and levels found are usually low
Fragrance	Undisclosed mixture on skin you ingest from	US federal guidance on fragrance labeling	Undisclosed is not the same as dangerous
Parabens	Several restricted or prohibited in the EU	EU Cosmetics Regulation	Still permitted here, and no US finding against them
Wax and pigment base	Not the issue	-	Not everything in the tube is a problem

Does that mean it is hurting me?

Quick answer: the study found the chemicals. It did not follow anyone.

Fluorine is a flag, not a verdict. A high result says these compounds are in the tube.

The team did confirm PFAS in a smaller batch they checked closely.

It does not measure what got into you, or what it did once it was there.

There is no federal ban on PFAS in makeup. The FDA said so itself in December 2025. Minnesota has banned it in cosmetics since January 2025. No recall on it, no fine.

That matters, and I am not leaving it out.

What I am left with is simpler than a study.

Half the lip products held chemicals that do not break down. Most of them said nothing on the box. And it goes on the one part of your face you swallow from.

Nobody had to prove harm for that to be enough for me.

Why does this one land differently after forty?

Quick answer: because this is thirty years of days, not one night out.

You have not worn lipstick now and then.

You put it on before work, before school drop off, before every wedding and every funeral.

Two hundred days a year for thirty years. Do that sum once.

And your lips are not like the skin on the back of your hand. They are thin, you lick them, you drink your coffee straight through them.

You are not giving it up. I am not asking you to. I wear lipstick and I am not putting it down.

The color is not the problem. The company behind the tube is.

What do I use instead?

Quick answer: color from a company that answers to the people shopping with it. And less patience with the words long wear.

Start with the promise on the front, not the shade.

Eight hour wear, transfer proof, kiss proof. Every one of those words describes a film built to stay put, and that is the job the researchers say these chemicals are added to do.

A lipstick you put on again after lunch is doing less to your mouth.

I am not sending you to the makeup counter to squint at tiny print on the back of a tube.

You already know how that goes. You stand there turning it over, pretending you know what you are looking at.

The joke is on you. They are not even printing the worst of it.

The Notre Dame result proves that.

You cannot read what they chose not to print.

That is why my family buys through a private membership store instead. We are the manufacturer, so there is no middleman and no markup. One name on it, and a person who picks up the phone.

What else do people ask?

Does the study name the brands? No. It reported by product type, not tube by tube. That is a fair thing to be annoyed about. The pattern by type is what you can use.

Is a lip balm safer? Balms are simpler. Less color, and no film built to last eight hours. The researchers say these chemicals get added to make a product tough and water resistant, and a balm is built to do neither.

Is drugstore worse than department store? No. Price was not the pattern. The cheap ones and the expensive ones both tested high. Which is why the question is who made it, not what you paid.

Does high fluorine prove harm? No, and I am not saying it does. Fluorine is a flag that these compounds are in there. It measures the tube, not you.

Who do you become?

You still wear the deep berry one you love.

You just stopped needing it to survive an eight hour day.

You put it on again after lunch, in the car mirror, with the engine still running.

Eleven seconds. You get the rest of it back.