In Mexico’s open-air markets, you’ll find all kinds of low-cost cosmetics and make-up, typically offered with none well being inspections. Credit score: Aleida Rueda.
Throughout Latin America’s cities, a profitable casual commerce in cosmetics and private hygiene merchandise is prospering.
However, typically unbeknown to those that purchase them, lots of this stuff are laced with poisonous chemical substances and heavy metals. They’re offered in huge portions with out labels, warnings, or regulation.
Research reveal the presence of arsenic, mercury, lead and different metals in lipsticks, eyeshadows, nail polish, pores and skin lighteners, and hair merchandise offered cheaply in markets and casual retailers.
In downtown Lima, tons of of individuals flock every day to the bustling galleries across the historic middle El Cercado to purchase cosmetics wholesale and retail, largely ignored by municipal inspectors.
“I come here every month or so to stock up (…) everything is very cheap here,” stated Zenobia Urquiza, who runs a market stall in Matucana province.
“I take the opportunity to stock up on some makeup items that sell easily, for example, now that it’s Halloween I’m bringing black eyeshadows, fluorescent eyeshadows, black and bright colored nail polishes,” she instructed SciDev.Internet.
None of those merchandise have a label, model, or well being certificates figuring out their supply.
“Do you want quality or price? If you want quality, go buy from Aruma [the largest makeup chain in Peru] or from a catalog and it will cost you an arm and a leg,” stated one vendor.
Whereas regional knowledge is scarce, the casual magnificence market represents main losses for companies. Peru’s Chamber of Commerce reported in 2024 that counterfeit shampoos, fragrances, lotions, lipsticks, talcum powder, and nail polish price the nation’s cosmetics business over US$260 million.
Some, nonetheless, revenue enormously. “I make about 5,000 soles [about US$1,500] a day just on this stall, sometimes more, sometimes less (…), and in total I have ten stalls,” stated the identical vendor.
Clandestine laboratories have multiplied, producing cosmetics by hand, typically in unsanitary circumstances.
In July 2025, Peruvian authorities seized almost two tons of counterfeit cosmetics and hygiene merchandise in El Cercado—expired, adulterated, or missing well being registration.
“The worrying thing about this case is that the use of these products made with unknown substances poses a health risk, because their use can cause itching, allergies, hair loss and other more serious health problems,” defined Rumi Cabrera, a specialist from Peru’s Ministry of Well being, on the time.
In a 2024 article within the journal Frontiers in Public Well being, Abdullah M. Alnuqaydan, a researcher at Qassim College, Saudi Arabia specializing in cosmetics toxicity, says toxins can journey into the bloodstream by means of dermal absorption and pose an actual hazard to the human physique.
A regional drawback
The pattern seen in Lima is rising throughout Latin America, the place demand for magnificence and private care merchandise has exploded. The area’s formal market was valued at US$58.71 billion in 2024 and is predicted to achieve US$95.06 billion by 2034.
Luisa Torres Sánchez, from Mexico’s Nationwide Institute of Public Well being, believes Latin America is especially weak to the dangerous results of a few of these merchandise. “Culturally, we use them more, but also our socioeconomic conditions lead us to choose to sacrifice quality for price,” she instructed SciDev.Internet.
Added to this, merchandise which are banned in different international locations, corresponding to pesticides or plastics are allowed to enter Latin America freely as a consequence of weak rules.
Europe, for example, banned semi-permanent gel nail polishes containing poisonous hardeners corresponding to trimethylbenzoyl diphenylphosphine oxide (TPO) and N,N-dimethyl-p-toluidine (DMPT) from September this 12 months. These substances stay in vast use in Latin America.
“If they are banned in Europe, could they reach our open-air markets? Perhaps we are receiving the cheapest products with the highest concentration of toxic substances. We don’t know,” Torres warned.
Most cancers-causing metals
Researchers are starting to map the dangers. In 2023, as a part of her thesis on the Nationwide College of San Marcos, Peruvian chemist Evelyn Santos analyzed 30 lipsticks from casual Lima markets utilizing atomic absorption spectrophotometry. All contained heavy metals—0.6 ppm of cadmium and 0.2 ppm of mercury on common.
Below US Meals and Drug Administration requirements, the samples contained permissible quantities of mercury, however cadmium ranges exceeded security limits. By stricter EU requirements, most contained heavy metals effectively above permissible limits.
“What I found in my analysis does not eliminate alarm—lip products that are bought in downtown Lima contain heavy metals, they contain cadmium and mercury,” Santos warned.
“And the presence of heavy metals is very risky, since these metals tend to accumulate in the body and we don’t know what damage this may cause in the future.”
Related findings emerged in Mexico. Researcher Francisco Bautista and his staff on the Nationwide Autonomous College of Mexico’s Middle for Analysis in Environmental Geography analyzed cosmetics offered in Mexican avenue markets, utilizing spectrophotometry, X-ray fluorescence and scanning electron microscopy.
They discovered excessive concentrations of vanadium—a carcinogenic steel—in low- and mid-range lipsticks, “ranging from hundreds […] to thousands,” based on an article revealed in Mexico’s Journal of Public Well being
“Acute vanadium poisoning affects the respiratory and digestive systems and causes heart palpitations, exhaustion, depression and tremors in the fingers and hands,” the article stated.
The researchers additionally detected copper, nickel, tin, lead chlorate, and different minerals, particularly in cheaper manufacturers.
“Ideally, heavy metals such as lead, nickel, vanadium and cadmium should not be among the components of lipsticks, as there are no safe concentrations for the human body,” they added.
Youngsters in danger
Youngsters and youngsters are additionally more and more affected. “Schoolgirls buy a lot of makeup because it’s cheap and allows them to be fashionable,” says Peruvian market dealer Urquiza.
A research in São Paulo discovered excessive arsenic ranges in youngsters’s costume make-up, with most cancers dangers exceeding accepted limits.
In the meantime, youngsters, influenced by social media, typically use merchandise designed for grownup pores and skin. Specialists warn that this could result in dangers corresponding to hormonal imbalances, allergic reactions, and publicity to chemical substances corresponding to parabens, phthalates, sulfates, and formaldehyde.
Bautista defined that so-called “influencers” on social media platforms corresponding to TikTok and Instagram have their very own make-up manufacturers. In his research, a number of samples of lipsticks and eyeshadows containing heavy metals got here from magnificence influencers.
“They don’t even know what they’re selling, but they’re promoting it, and it’s full of heavy metals (…) If I had daughters, I would tell them: “Overlook about these low-cost influencer manufacturers.'”
Lengthy-term risk
Assessing the well being influence of those merchandise is difficult as a result of harm develops slowly.
“It’s not easy to study,” stated Martha Téllez-Rojo, an epidemiologist at Mexico’s Nationwide Institute of Public Well being. She added, “If I use a deodorant with aluminum today (…) it’s a very slow process.”
Her staff has adopted 800 girls and their youngsters in Mexico Metropolis for greater than 30 years. Generally, they discovered traces of heavy metals in urine and proof of early neurodevelopmental and hormonal results, revealing that these substances will be handed from mom to child.
“I couldn’t say if it’s the deodorant or the cream or the eyeliner, but there are metabolites in their urine associated with effects that we observe from a very early age, very small, that accumulate and affect their neurodevelopment, endocrine system, their sleep patterns or their lipid processing,” Téllez-Rojo defined.
Nanotechnology specialist Paulina Abrica González, from Mexico’s Nationwide Polytechnic Institute, agrees that learning these associations is tough and time-consuming. She focuses on evaluating the potential hurt of nanoparticles utilized in cosmetics to present pores and skin a smoother look.
“I may not wear a lot of makeup, but I do apply it daily (…) And we use it for almost our entire lives, from a young age or childhood, so what we’re going to see are the long-term effects,” she stated.
Abrica and her staff used animal exams often known as comet assays to check titanium oxide nanoparticles present in cosmetics for genotoxicity—the power of a substance to break genetic materials (DNA) in a cell. This harm can result in mutations, which can lead to ailments corresponding to most cancers or delivery defects.
Though they discovered higher DNA harm at larger nanoparticle concentrations, it takes time for the substance to build up. Abrica stated, “We won’t have results for another five or ten years.”
The researcher warned that this poses a problem for regulatory our bodies which assess—and approve—the protection of cosmetics based mostly on fast exams that will not be appropriate for figuring out long-term results. “That’s why we often find out too late that a product is harmful,” she added.
Precautionary precept
Specialists agree that the time taken to generate proof should not delay regulation.
“It’s not that we want to say, ‘Don’t use nanoparticles!’ (…) But we do want to raise awareness about the concentrations, the types of nanoparticles, and the skin types,” Abrica stated.
Customers, she added, deserve transparency about components and concentrations.
Torres agreed: “I believe that as consumers we have the right to demand to know what we’re putting into our products. Yes, I’ll buy your cream, but tell me what’s in it.”
Bautista believes that if the chance is especially excessive, customers ought to be alerted. “That is called the precautionary principle (…) If we applied the precautionary principle, many cosmetic products, lipsticks and eyeshadows would be withdrawn from the market,” he stated.
Finally, he warned, “We have to stop using these products (…) The use of these products by minors should be strictly prohibited.”
But casual gross sales proceed throughout the area. For a lot of, the selection is financial. As Urquiza, the make-up vendor, put it: “If they had labels they’d be more expensive and we wouldn’t be able to buy them, and poor people also have the right to look good, right?”
SciDev.Internet requested feedback from well being authorities in Mexico and Peru however acquired no responses forward of publication.
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Poisonous magnificence: Well being dangers of Latin America’s cosmetics commerce (2025, November 10)
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