Does your makeup contain bugs?

 Being a vegetarian in North America I always check the ingredients while buying any food items. A lot of times there are ingredients I am not familiar with and end up googling at the store that none of it is derived from animals.

I came across this while looking up one of the ingredients and turns out a lot of makeup uses the Cochineal dye. Primarily red lipsticks from major brands.

From L’Oreal to Maybelline to high fashion brands like Channel and YSL sell products containing Carmine - Cochineal Extract to achieve the popular bright red colour.

So what is Cochineal and how is the dye made?

The Cochineal is a scale insect typically found in tropical South America. Carminic acid, typically 17–24% of dried insects' weight, can be extracted from the body and eggs, then mixed with aluminum or calcium salts to make carmine dye.

Workers at the farms collect the female cochineal insects from their host plants. The insects are processed by exposure to sunlight, steam, or the heat of an oven. Each method produces a different color that results in the varied appearance of commercial cochineal. The insects must be dried to about 30% of their original body weight before they can be stored without decaying. It takes about 70,000 insects to make one pound of cochineal dye.

Not just make-up but some food products also get their red pigment from these insects such as processed meat, artificial crab meat, cakes, yogurt, and liquors such as Campari™.

If you wish to avoid these bugs in your food or cosmetics look out for “CI 75470,” “cochineal extract,” “crimson lake,” “natural red 4,” or “carmine” listed as one of the ingredients.