What may be in that makeup should really creep you out.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Scary makeup is a necessity for some Halloween costumes, but the makeup itself shouldn't be cause for alarm. Last year a nonprofit group devoted to product safety tested 10 brands of Halloween face paint, and found that every single one was contaminated with heavy metals. The group's director, Stacy Malkan, tells us that the products have not been reformulated for 2010 and many still have the same problematic ingredients.

THE DETAILS: The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which a few years ago brought attention to the problem of lead in lipstick, purchased 10 different brands of Halloween-themed children's makeup and theatrical face paint at random, and sent them to an independent lab for testing. Lead was detected in all 10 samples, and the tests also revealed detectable levels of other allergenic heavy metals: nickel (a common culprit in "cellphone rash"), cobalt, and chromium. The levels of lead detected in this study ranged from 0.05 to 0.65 parts per million (ppm), a little lower than levels detected in lipstick earlier this year by the Food and Drug Administration. The federal limit for lead in toys marketed to children under age 12 is 300 ppm, so the amounts detected might seem low. But the general consensus among the medical community is that there is no such thing as a safe level of lead exposure.

WHAT IT MEANS: Because these products are intended for children, there's a chance that kids could lick the paint off during the course of their trick-or-treating, exposing them to a material that can interfere with neurological development and cause brain damage. Lead exposure in childhood has also been linked to an increased risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and aggressive behavior. And those skin rashes your tot experienced last Halloween may have been a reaction to the other heavy metals detected in these face paints. Halloween is just a few days away, but you still have time to buy ingredients for do-it-yourself face paints, or find a child's costume that doesn't require any face paints at all.