Beauty Fact: Red Lipstick Contains Crushed Bugs (Beauty pro division)

“Your lipstick has bugs in it,” a co-worker pointed out as I applied my favorite shade of red one afternoon. “What are you talking about? It’s clearly labeled vegan, hello!” I responded. “No really – look it up. It’s a known fact that the color red is commonly derived from bugs.”

What! What is this nonsense? Was I the only one who thought that something labeled vegan should be vegan? And why isn’t it common knowledge that little bugs were comprised of my favorite shade of lipstick? And so the research began…

I quickly learned that the proper term for these “bugs” were carmine and cochineal. Labeled as either a natural flavor, natural color, or even mineral, the bugs have a long standing history for being used for its color, dating back to pre-Hispanic Mexico when the Mixtec Indians used the dried and ground insects to create a color-fast red dye for fabrics. Cochineal extract is a coloring extracted from the eggs of the cochineal beetle, which lives on cactus plants in Peru, the Canary Islands, and elsewhere. Carmine is a more purified coloring made from cochineal.

I further found out that "These colorings, which are extremely stable, are used in some red, pink, or purple candy, yogurt, Campari, ice cream, beverages, and many other foods, as well as drugs and cosmetics." So there you have it. Crushed bugs now comprise of everything from pork sausage, Tropicana Season's Best Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice and my favorite lipstick! All I’m asking is when was the last time a bug was labeled as a “natural mineral?” Yuck!

Tags: Beauty PR

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