What the US Doesn't Check in Your Lipstick
Here's a simple question most of us have never thought to ask: before a lipstick reaches the shelf, who checks what's in it? In the United States, the answer is surprising and it's worth two minutes of your time.
The gap, in numbers
The European Union has banned more than 1,300 ingredients from cosmetics. The United States has banned or restricted around a dozen banned by the FDA. That's not a typo, roughly a dozen, versus well over a thousand.
It comes down to one difference in thinking. The EU follows what's called the precautionary principle: if an ingredient is suspected of being unsafe, it's kept out until it's proven safe. The United States has largely worked the other way around : an ingredient is allowed unless and until it's proven harmful and specifically removed.
And cosmetics get less oversight than you'd think
Unlike medicine, cosmetics in the US don't require any approval before they're sold. No one signs off on a lipstick's ingredients ahead of time. The core cosmetics law hadn't been meaningfully updated since 1938 , and while a newer 2023 law finally gave the FDA more authority, including the power to order recalls, it still didn't adopt the EU's banned list or require anyone to approve a formula before it reaches you.
The gap, in other words, is real, and it's still there.
Why this matters most for lipstick
Of everything in your makeup kits, lipstick is the one you have the most personal reason to care about. You reapply it through the day, and a little of every application ends up swallowed. It's the one cosmetic you effectively eat, formulated under a system that mostly trusts each brand to decide for itself what belongs in the tube.
Which means the small print on the back of the package isn't a formality. It's the main thing actually looking out for you.
So we chose the stricter standard
We formulate as though the tougher rules applied to us, leaving out the long list of questionable ingredients that other markets have already decided against, whether or not anyone here requires it. Not the legal minimum. The standard we'd want for our own lips.
You were never told the rules were this loose. Now you know why reading the label matters and why we made ours worth reading.
xx
Gabriela
Figures reflect widely reported comparisons of EU and US cosmetic regulation and can vary by counting method; the broad gap is well documented. Nothing here is medical or legal advice.