The quest for beauty has been an endless one. Whether it was Cleopatra bathing in goat milk or the Romans resorting to olive oil and rose water to achieve that sparkling glow, this search, like vanity, knows no bounds. Beauty seekers in ancient civilisations chose to go au naturale but today, make-up and beauty products are far from natural. When labels claim their eye-liners/kajals are free from lead and other toxins, it’s probably best to do your own research and not blindly believe what you’re told. We can marvel at the variety that is at our disposal today, but let’s not be naïve about the deathly side effects.
“In our society, milaawat [mixing] is so prevalent in every other thing, even food. So cosmetics can easily be meddled with too,” says Dr Mohammad Hanif, an eye specialist. “Before buying any eye-liner, it’s essential to find out what it contains.” There are low quality products as well as well-known brands in the market. “It is essential on the user’s part to find out if it contains lead or other toxins.”
Kajal, kohl, eye-liner — are they all the same?
All these are one of the many names of the same devil. However, on a scale of one to 10, if you were to pick the least harmful product, it would have to be the eye-liner — not the kohls and kajals. While the former contains a toxin called arsenic — which is poisonous to multi-cellular life — it is still suprisingly less fatal than the lead content which is found in the latter. Important note: an eye-liner is still very harmful.
Kohl is an ancient eye cosmetic widely used in the Middle East and South Asia; you aren’t desi, if you don’t have kajal in your eyes! But how this product is manufactured is what really grabs one’s attention. It is made by grinding lead sulfide. And that’s not all. Kohl may also contain a variety of other dangerous toxins such as aluminum, antimony, carbon, iron and zinc compounds.
Kohl has been banned by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA); it identifies four popular products which contain high levels of lead:
• Hashmi Surma Special (47% lead)
• Pure Kohl from the Waters of ZamZam (36% lead)
• Hashmi Kajal (27% lead)
• Hashmi Kohl Aswad (4% lead)
Health Canada, Consumer Product Safety has also deemed Hashmi Kohl Aswad — which is manufactured in Pakistan — to be highly hazardous. An interesting fact to mention here is that Hashmi Surma Special and Hashmi Kajal are also produced in Pakistan.
Are you a victim of lead poisoning?
There’s a myriad of symptoms you will face when you’ve been caught in the deathly web of lead poisoning such as vomiting, weakness, paleness, weight loss, headaches, poor attention span, slowed speech development and learning difficulty, hyperactivity, abdominal pain and also irritability.
Lead is a toxin which can easily be absorbed through the skin. So when you put kajal on and realise that it has somehow faded away, you should know that it has been absorbed by your skin and has also entered your eyes.
“When eye-liner is applied, its particles enter your eyes instantly and act like a foreign body,” Dr Hanif explains. “The particles float along your tear film or duct and eventually come between the cornea and contact lens. This causes irritation and the chances of the cornea being scratched massively increase.”
He goes on to reveal the kinds of infection lead can cause to the human eye. “Sometimes these infections are chronic and you find out years later,” he says, adding that what makes matters worse is when members of the same family share the same pencil. “The infection will instantly travel to the next person’s eye.”
That’s just the damage it does to your eye. What about the rest of the human body? Lead is a toxin which causes direct damage to the brain. And since every organ of the body is controlled by your brain, the side effects form a scary never-ending list.
The FDA has listed a number of health problems which result from lead exposure such as anaemia, kidney problems, learning and behaviour problems and neurological damage that may include seizures, coma and death, as well as, hormone disruption, cancer, memory loss, mood swings, reproductive and developmental disorders, diarrhoea, lung damage, dermatitis and hair loss.
Please note: Get rid of all your kajals and kohls and find out whether other cosmetics you use, contain toxins such as lead or arsenic — mascaras, lipsticks and lip glosses are all known to contain such toxins so don’t be too surprised.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 13th, 2013.
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