Is it true that a woman eats up to 4 kg of lipstick in her lifetime?

There is a widespread belief that over a lifetime, up to 4 kg of this decorative cosmetics enters a woman’s body, and a little less into a man’s body. We decided to check if this is actually true.

Information that a woman eats for your life big quantity labial lipstick, Can find as in Media, and on various forums. This “part of the diet” of women is especially common are discussing on websites about cosmetics and makeup. Moreover, the named volumes vary - from 4 to 15 kg for life. For men usually numbers less - “only” up to 3 kg. Although there are also paradoxical figures: for example, the LookAtMe resource assertsthat a woman eats 4–6 kg, and a man eats twice as much.

Lipstick is one of the oldest cosmetic products. In excavations of the Sumerian city of Ur in the burials of wealthy citizens, archaeologists discovered The prototype of modern lipstick is shell shells filled with a dye. Supposedly lip coloring was popularized by Puabi - the ruler (according to other sources, priestess) of this city who lived about 4500 years ago. Her lipstick included white lead and crushed red stones, and later recipes included wine lees, dyes derived from shellfish and plants, antimony, cinnabar and ocher. Initially, lipstick was worn by both women and men, and painted lips were considered a demonstration of high status. After the tradition of painting lips penetrated into Egypt, the palette of lipsticks became wider - orange, purple and blue-black shades began to be actively used. In medieval Europe, discreet colors such as pink and lilac became popular. Thanks to the English Queen Elizabeth I, lip pencil appeared in the second half of the 16th century. A real lipstick revolution happened, when in 1915 Maurice Levy came up with the idea of ​​packaging lipstick in a metal tube, making application as convenient as possible. Now on the market presented a huge range of lip cosmetics, in addition to lipsticks - liquid glosses, varnishes, tints, plumpers, shimmers and finishes.

For further calculations, we will use the minimum amount of allegedly eaten lipstick indicated in popular sources - 4 kg for a woman and 3 kg for a man, and also carry out all calculations in relation to modern Russian realities. Fact checkers from the American project Snopes, having studied popular lipstick brands on the world market, came I conclude that the average tube contains 3 g of lipstick itself and is enough for about 410 applications. To eat 4 kg of lipstick in a lifetime, a woman needs to use at least 1,333 tubes in her lifetime. Let’s assume that a girl starts using decorative cosmetics at the age of 17 (many educational establishments in Russia, despite legislation, prohibit minors from wearing makeup) and wear makeup all their lives (life expectancy for women in the Russian Federation in 2022 amounted to 77.8 years). In total, this conventional Russian woman has 60.8 years to actively use cosmetics. In order to eat 4 kg of lipstick during this time, a woman must buy at least 22 tubes every year. In this case, absolutely all applied lipstick must be licked off the lips and swallowed, and not left on dishes, cutlery or the lips of a partner and not washed off with makeup remover. If you take this into account, you will have to buy much more than 22 tubes annually.

Since each tube is approximately 410 applications of lipstick, then 1,333 tubes over a lifetime is approximately 546,500 applications. To eat 4 kg of lipstick in a lifetime, a typical Russian woman needs to apply makeup about 9,000 times over the course of a year, and an average of 24.5 times per day (that is, almost every hour if you set an alarm clock at night to apply makeup, or every 40 minutes if you devote eight hours to sleep). You need to apply makeup with such intensity without missing a single day, even when a woman is sick, on vacation or stayed at home on her day off. Moreover, not a single milligram of applied cosmetics should get past the stomach. 

Even if a woman starts wearing makeup at school age (for example, at 14 years old), lives a long time (for example, up to 84 years old) and regularly paints her lips all this time, using 4 kg of lipstick in her life seems to be a rather difficult task, even if she deliberately strives to achieve it. Over the course of her 70-year “career,” such a woman must buy at least 19 tubes of lipstick annually, wear lipstick at least 21 times a day, and eat all the lipstick she uses. 

Now let’s deal with a hypothetical Russian who accidentally eats lipstick from his partner’s lips. Let's assume that until the age of 17 he kisses exclusively with his unmade-up peers - then the first “tasting” of lipstick occurs in the same way as for women, at 17 years old. Expected duration life men in the Russian Federation in 2022 was 67.6 years. To consume 3 kg of lipstick in 50.6 years, you need to eat about 59.3 g per year, or almost 20 full tubes. Let’s say that when kissing a woman who has just put on makeup, absolutely all the lipstick ends up in the man’s stomach. In this case, in order to ensure the “daily consumption” of such volumes, you need to kiss about 22.5 times a day, that is, if you set aside eight hours for sleep, then in the remaining time you need to kiss your freshly made-up partner every 43 minutes and eat absolutely all the lipstick from her lips. 

But in order for both a man and a woman to provide the stated amount of lipstick in their “diet” (3 kg and 4 kg, respectively), they will have to master the basics of time management. Let's say 17-year-old Russian teenagers created a couple, lived together all their lives, kissed regularly, and after the death of her partner, a woman swore off wearing lipstick. In this case, during their life together, the heroine of this love story needs to apply lipstick 52 times every day during 16 hours of wakefulness (that is, every 18.5 minutes), of which about 30 times she eats the cosmetics herself, and another 22 times she lets her partner do it. Such a routine, although generally feasible, looks extremely absurd and, moreover, does not take into account that some of the lipstick will still be absorbed into the skin of the lips, and some will remain on other objects and will not get into the stomach.

Scientists do not have accurate data on how much lipstick men and women actually unintentionally eat during their lives. Moreover, it would be extremely difficult to calculate this, since some modern women completely abandon this element of decorative cosmetics, while others use it only occasionally. In general, one application takes about 7 mg of lipstick, but most of it usually does not enter the stomach, and remains on a coffee cup, wine glass or makeup remover pad.

There is no need to be afraid screaming headlines about dangerous substances in lipsticks, because there is no serious evidence of their toxicity. For example, parabens used in the cosmetics industry for preservation were indeed discovered in cancerous tissues, however, scientists have not yet been able to determine whether they caused the oncological process or simply accumulated there. Although lead was present in cosmetic products of some brands, contained in negligible quantities, incapable of harming a person. In addition, in lipsticks discovered manganese, titanium and aluminum, however, even in this case, scientists found it difficult to assess whether the content of these metals in the detected quantities could negatively affect health.

Thus, in theory, a woman can eat 4 kg of lipstick in her life, and a man can eat 3 kg, but you will have to carefully monitor your daily routine and either paint your lips several dozen times a day and eat the applied cosmetics, or make sure that your partner has put on their makeup and kiss her, completely sending all the lipstick from your lips into your stomach. In fact, by chance we eat significantly less cosmetics, since we usually renew our makeup much less frequently, and besides, a significant part of the lipstick does not end up in the stomach, but remains on the dishes or is washed off when removing makeup. Moreover, there is no need to worry even because of this small amount, because modern cosmetics are not shells with lead paste from the times of Sumerian beauties and normally do not contain substances hazardous to health.

Cover image: Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

Not true

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