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The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics urges nurses to help get the lead out.

Consumers would assume products for babies are the purist and most gentle on the market. But this is not the case, according to author and environmentalist Stacy Malkan, who is part of a campaign to ensure ingredients in cosmetics and personal products contain only safe ingredients.

Malkan says the most vulnerable populations – fetuses and small children – are endangered by products that are neurotoxic, interfere with reproduction and fertility, or are carcinogenic.

"Babies are being born pre-polluted," said Malkan, communications director of Arlington, Va.-based Health Care Without Harm. "What can we do differently?"

Malkan, author of the book "Not Just a Pretty Face," and her colleagues took that question to the leading beauty companies, she said during a meeting with students at the University of Maryland School of Nursing, Baltimore.

Malkan said of 14 baby shampoos tested, all had 1,4-Dioxane, a carcinogen, and 61% of the 33 top-selling lipsticks had detectable lead levels. Other products that have the highest safety concerns are hair color and bleach, hair relaxer, nail polish, nail treatments, and skin lightener.

Malkan is eager to warn consumers and sees nurses as important cogs in spreading the word to patients about dangers masquerading as health and beauty products.

Consumers can make a difference by choosing safer products and telling cosmetic companies to make safer products.

"We have the power because we get to decide what we use, what we bring into our homes, what companies we spend our money on," she said.

Communicating with companies selling hazardous goods to reformulate the products to make them safe is necessary, Malkan said.

In her book, Malkan tells how a large nail polish manufacturer used an ingredient banned in Europe but sold in the U.S. Through consumer activism, the company changed its formula to remove the harmful ingredient.

Hydroquinone is banned in other countries but is a common ingredient in skin lightening creams sold in the U.S., Malkan said. Among hair relaxers, the most toxic of one brand was sold for use by children.

Hazardous ingredients are not always listed on labels, according to Malkan. For instance, lead does not have to be listed because it is a byproduct of manufacturing. The FDA calls a byproduct a contaminant, and contaminants are not required to be listed.

Because a product is expensive does not mean it is safer, Malkan said.

One of the least expensive brands of lipstick, Wet and Wild, has been found to be lead-free, while more expensive brands had high levels of lead, according to Malkan.

Pam Meredith, RN, NP, is editorial director for the DC/Maryland/Virginia edition of Nursing Spectrum.

To comment, e-mail editorDC@nursingspectrum.com.