Bite Beauty at Sephora

I first read about Bite Beauty in the April 2011 issue of Flare magazine and was looking forward to trying its products, as I'm currently looking for a 'clean' lipstick. Bite Beauty makes lip products that are supposedly "truly good enough to eat".

Here is the article intro:

"The average woman consumes five to seven pounds of lipstick in her lifetime," claims Toronto-based beauty entrepreneur Susanne Langmuir. She's explaining the simple yet shrewd realization that sparked her interest in creating cosmetics made exclusively with edible ingredients: Since we ingest whatever we slick on our lips, it should all be food grade. "If it's good enough to eat-- if you can put it in an organic yogourt or fruit drink or Gummi Bear-- that meets my criteria for what you can put on your lips," she says.

I was pretty excited to read this, thinking that this Bite would have lipsticks that are safe enough to eat! So I went into Sephora yesterday, eagerly testing out the shades. THEN I read the ingredients on the boxes and was quite surprised. Phenoxyethanol is one of the ingredients in the lipstick. Yes, it says it is coconut derived, but I'm uncertain that this makes it less of a toxin concern. Check out what studies have had to say about the ingestion of phenoxyethanol at EWG.

I might be wrong, but common sense tells me that phenoxyethanol is NOT a food grade ingredient, nor will you be finding it in "an organic yogourt or fruit drink or Gummi Bear". At least I would hope not. Yes, coconut is a food, but coconut-derived is not equal to coconut. The ingredients listed Bite lipstick boxes also include calcium aluminum borosilicate-- this caught my attention because anything with aluminum in it raises red flags for me. So I looked up this ingredient and what is it exactly? EWG states that "Calcium aluminum borosilicate is a glass-type material used as a bulking agent." That doesn't sound food grade to me. And I should note that this ingredient is actually not listed online at Sephora, but on the boxes.

Okay, so furthermore, Bite's lip balms contain octinoxate and oxybenzone for sunscreen protection. Neither of which are food grade ingredients, and I'd like to highlight that oxybenzone rates a 'high hazard' 9 on EWG.

I feel that the press surrounding Bite Beauty has been misleading. This just goes to show you that if one is really serious about clean ingredients, you have got to do your research, as onerous as it may be. While Bite Beauty may use food grade ingredients in its lip products, it appears not all the ingredients are food grade. Based on some of the ingredients, I really would not consider Bite Beauty lip products "truly good enough to eat". Would you eat a Gummi bear with phenoxyethanol, calcium aluminum borosilcate, octinoxate, and oxybenzone?