When we talk about trends, we generally think about how they come and go really quick. Generally trends are circular and what is popular now, will probably be tacky or out of style five, ten years down the road (until it inevitably comes back in style maybe twenty years later). But have you ever thought about trends from the WAY past? I’m talking about the Bronze Age past.
For the next few posts, I will be discussing various topics brought up in the video below. I’ve seen this video maybe three or four times on Youtube because of how much I enjoyed it! It really made me reflect on how things almost always have negative externalities on humans and the environment. For this post, I will be discussing how ooooold influencers have caused the incredibly dangerous makeup trend of deathly white complexions, involving lead. The part of the video that discusses this is from 5:29 to 5:58. However, you don’t have to watch the video to read this post!
Deathly White. That was the trend. The whiter someone’s face was, the more beautiful they were perceived as. This trend occured at various points in history in multiple locations. The use of lead-based cosmetics is believed to have begun in Europe during the Archaic period. In Greece, this was equivalent to the Bronze Age. It became widespread and having a deadly white complexion was the norm. This trend appeared again in the 16th century and once again in the 17th and 18th century, especially amongst the wealthy. This trend lasted surprisingly long, with commercial white makeup products being introduced in the 19th century (Witkowski and Parish, 2001). An example of this is shown below.
Unfortunately for those who part-took in the trend, the deathly white complexion was achieved with the the use of white lead which was incredibly toxic. White lead is a form of basic lead carbonate (2PbCO3 z Pb (OH)2) (Witkowski and Parish, 2001). The use of lead in cosmetics has resulted in the issue of lead poisoning, a result of the gradual accumulation of lead in the body due to repeated exposure to lead-containing compounds (Witkowski and Parish, 2001). Lead poisoning affects human health in multiple ways. It affects the entire body, especially the neuromuscular system, the gastrointestinal tract, and the hematopoetic tissue which leads to a host of symptoms for the affected person (Witkowski and Parish, 2001). Some of these symptoms include irritable moods, insomnia, loss of appetite, muscle weakness and anemia and the poisoning can even lead to death (Witkowski and Parish, 2001).
Since the 1930s, lead has not been present in American made cosmetics (Witkowski and Parish, 2001). Although we don’t necessarily have to worry about lead in our cosmetics now, lead is still being used for a host of other items like car batteries (Carrington, 2017) and can even appear in the environment through incineration processes. According to the US Environment Protection Agency,
Lead is persistent in the environment and can be added to soils and sediments through deposition from sources of lead air pollution. Other sources of lead to ecosystems include direct discharge of waste streams to water bodies and mining.
The persistence of lead in the environment causes the impact of lead to still be widespread today – impacting the lives of many. For example, Kabwe, Zambia is one of the world’s most polluted places with exceedingly high concentrations of lead in the town. Despite the state-owned lead smelter closing down in 1994, the dusty soil in the surrounding soil in the surrounding area with extremely dangerous levels of lead (Carrington, 2017). In affected townships, the lead in soils is about 10 times the US safety limit and far higher in hotspots. In these hotspots, readings often exceed 10,000 parts per million (ppm), far above the 400ppm limit in the US (Carrington, 2017). The potent neurotoxin is especially damaging to children, with the impacts of lead poisoning staying with them for the rest of their lives. In Kabwe, a study revealed that of 246 children tested, every single one of them had blood lead levels that were above the safety limit of 5 micrograms per decilitre of blood (Yabe et al., 2015).
Another important case study showing the negative impact of lead poisoning on children is China. In a study conducted in a rural area located near lead mines and processing plants found that the mean blood lead level of the 379 children tested in the polluted area was 16.38 micrograms per decilitre (Lin et al., 2011). The same study also found that blood lead levels increased with exposure levels. This highlights the importance of minimising exposure to lead as prolonged exposure will affect people in a much worse way. Furthermore, just living away from lead mining and processing areas is insufficient. The same study found that 20% of the children in the control area had blood lead levels greater than 10 micrograms per decilitre, even though no lead industries were near their homes (Lin et al., 2011). Other sources of lead exposure might be lead-based paint, lead pesticides, or lead-containing toys and tableware. So just because lead is not being used in cosmetic products, does not mean that people are not being exposed to lead daily from other sources.
From the case studies of Kabwe and China, we can see that the persistence of lead in the environment results in the vulnerable being the most negatively affected. The case of lead highlights the importance of research and understanding the impacts of our actions for they do not only affect us, but especially those living near the services that provide for our actions. Future generations are also inevitably affected by our actions for dangerous persistent materials like lead.
Carringtown, D. (2017). The world’s most toxic town: the terrible legacy of Zambia’s lead mines. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/28/the-worlds-most-toxic-town-the-terrible-legacy-of-zambias-lead-mines.
Environment Protection Agency. (n.d.). Basic Information about Lead Air Pollution. United States Environment Protection Agency. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/lead-air-pollution/basic-information-about-lead-air-pollution.
Lin, S., Wang, X., Yu, I. T., Tang, W., Miao, J., Li, J., Wu, S., & Lin, X. (2011). Environmental lead pollution and elevated blood lead levels among children in a rural area of China. American journal of public health, 101(5), 834–841. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2010.193656.
Witkowski, J. A., & Parish, L. C. (2001). You’ve come a long way baby: a history of cosmetic lead toxicity. Clinics in dermatology, 19(4), 367–370. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0738-081x(01)00196-1.
Yabe, J., Nakayama, S., Ikenaka, Y., Yohannes, Y. B., Bortey-Sam, N., Oroszlany, B., Muzandu, K., Choongo, K., Kabalo, A. N., Ntapisha, J., Mweene, A., Umemura, T., & Ishizuka, M. (2015). Lead poisoning in children from townships in the vicinity of a lead-zinc mine in Kabwe, Zambia. Chemosphere, 119, 941–947. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2014.09.028.