🧠Lead

A metal still found in glazes, solder, paint, imported ceramics and some older cookware. There is no level considered safe, and its effects on the developing brain are permanent. It cannot be tasted, smelled or seen.

Of the 11,795 products we have graded, 171 are flagged for it and 2 on reported or likely evidence rather than plausibility. Cosmetics is the worst category at 50% of what we scored there.

More than in anything else we grade. 4 of the 8 cosmetics we scored carry a flag for it, which is 50%. The full breakdown per product is on each product page.

In the categories where it turns up most, the highest scoring products with no flag for it are Tower 28 BeachPlease Cream Blush at 85, Saie Dew Blush Liquid Blush at 85, Ilia Beauty Multi-Stick Cream Blush and Lip Tint at 85. Every one of those was graded on the same rubric as the products above.

Almost never declared, because it is a contaminant rather than an ingredient. Bright yellow, orange and red glazes on imported or vintage ceramics, and any glaze that has gone chalky or dull. Painted decoration on the rim or the inside of a glass, which is where the mouth goes. It turns up in glazed and imported ceramics, painted glassware, brass fittings, some spices and cocoa as growing or processing contamination, and traditional cosmetics such as kohl.

Banned from house paint in the United States since 1978 and from plumbing solder since 1986. The FDA sets action levels in candy and juice and issues guidance on ceramic ware, and California Proposition 65 forces a warning label above its own thresholds. The CDC states there is no known safe blood level in children.

We do not lab test. Every grade here is built from published ingredient lists, materials, certifications, brand disclosures, recalls and third party lab results where those already exist. Where a product has been independently tested we use that result and say so, and where a brand publishes nothing we score the silence rather than guessing.