Not So Pretty

From performances on videos

to the big screen to the red carpet,

makeup is a big part of how we present ourselves.

Sometimes it's a first date.

Sometimes it's a first impression,

but every time we paint our face,

we express part of our personality.

You feel pretty, and everybody wants to feel pretty.

Our desire to be attractive and beautiful

has started since the history of time.

I just always had used it for fun

until it all came tumbling down.

You would assume that whatever you're buying,

because it's on the shelf, it's safe.

I called all my buds and said, "Hey, send me a sample,"

and in all of them, I found asbestos.

It was hard to accept or believe.

It can be found in eyeshadow, blush,

foundation, lipstick.

Sometimes all this makeup

may do things to us that are not so pretty.

Oh, my.

Did I do my makeup here?

I guess you did your own makeup there.

Red cheeks.

It looks like she found Mom's makeup.

Honestly, besides the lipstick,

it doesn't look like I did that bad a job.

Ha ha ha! She even has blush on her.

Turn around, Corrin.

Corrin, voice-over: I grew up in Destrehan, Louisiana.

I loved to, like, play and roughhouse,

you know, hang out with the boys...

but I also always had a really girly, creative side.

I've always played with makeup for as long as I can remember.

Woman, voice-over: Corrin understood shading

and colors and things like that,

and then by the sixth grade, she was asking for things

that I don't even know how to use.

Corrin, voice-over: I did friends' makeup

in senior photos, and by college,

I was able to get a job as a freelance makeup artist

for Christian Dior.

I got to work with people,

and I got to make them feel good with makeup.

Ha ha!

Woman, voice-over: My daughter Mackenzie was 5,

and she used to get into my makeup,

and I would find these big chunks of powder missing.

It was her creative expression.

For kids, this is like art. This is--

That messy painting that they would do on the easel

is now just with powder on their face.

Oh, that's so beautiful.

Oh, it's--

So one weekend, we got this little makeup kit

from Claire's.

At the time, I worked at a law firm

on a case that involved asbestos,

and Mackenzie walked by and said,

"Well, could my makeup have asbestos in it?"

And I was like, "Oh, probably not," like,

but the more I thought about it, I was like,

"Well, maybe we should get it tested."

Corrin, voice-over: After college,

I began building a career in makeup...

and then one day, I started to get,

like, really bad pains in my abdomen.

It felt like somebody was taking my intestines

and turning them and strangling them.

She was just getting sicker and sicker and sicker and sicker.

I said, "You need to go to the hospital."

Corrin, voice-over: I meet with a surgeon,

and he says, "We have to operate."

Back up, please.

Corrin, voice-over: I wake up from surgery,

and I asked the doctor what it was,

and he told me he doesn't know.

He has to wait for pathology.

Pathology comes back.

It's mesothelioma.

It was like, "What?

How in the hell did I get mesothelioma?"

It was horrifying.

Somebody 26 years old, you know, wow, that--

it made no sense.

Mesothelioma is a cancer that is incurable

of the lining around your lung and the abdomen.

It's an excruciating way to die,

and it's almost always caused by exposure to asbestos.

Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral

that has been mined since the 1870s.

It has been primarily used to strengthen and fireproof

bricks, pipes, and insulation.

You get cancer from asbestos

by inhaling asbestos fibers into your body

through your nose and your mouth.

It was hard to accept or believe

because I didn't go work in a plant

that exposed me to asbestos.

I didn't go huff a bag of asbestos.

My daughter had a habit

of blowing into the palette,

and it would just make this huge cloud of colorful dust,

so I reached out to a lab that I knew.

So she called me up and said,

"Hey, I've got this box of makeup.

It's from Claire's,"

and I'm like, "Claire's? What's that?"--ha ha!--

and she said, "Well, it's where, you know,

all the girls get their ears pierced."

I'm like, "OK. Send it to me, and I'll do it gratis."

Sean Fitzgerald is a geologist

who runs a laboratory that tests products for asbestos.

Fitzgerald, voice-over: I told Kristi,

"I finally got around to testing this.

You'd better sit down."

"I found asbestos in the sparkly Claire's box that you sent me."

I just remember sinking.

Like, it felt like slow motion.

Being in the field that I'm in, I've met people

who have ultimately passed away from asbestos exposure,

and my daughter has met these people.

As parents, you would assume that whatever you're buying

for your children, "It's on store shelves.

Why would it make it that far and not be safe?"

So how did asbestos get into a child's makeup?

Well, the key to understanding how that happened

is to look at another personal care product,

one that has been marketed for decades

as the essence of mother-child love.

OK. Got your little stockings on.

Corrin, voice-over: My mom used baby powder since I was born.

Julie, voice-over: Corrin always had pretty sensitive skin,

so she would get diaper rash pretty easily,

so when we powdered her, we powdered her good.

Yes.

The most widely used baby powder

is sold by Johnson & Johnson.

The company even encouraged doctors

to recommend it to young mothers.

Go get 'em.

Man, voice-over: I was an obstetrician and gynecologist

for 50 years.

When I went into practice, I would recommend

Johnson & Johnson's baby powder for pregnant moms,

and I'd say, "Yep. Use it on baby."

And Dr. Tom McHattie was a lifelong user of the product.

McHattie, voice-over: Growing up as a kid,

there was never anything else in the house.

I used it in my skates.

I used it in my tennis shoes, used it playing football.

My 4 kids got covered in Johnson & Johnson.

I mean, every time they had a bath, they got powdered.

It was kind of being, like, a little snowstorm

running down the hallway with baby powder coming off them.

Consumers might have an idea of baby powder

as this, like, white, pure sort of substance that's clean,

and that's the way it's been marketed over time...

Ever since I was a little girl, Johnson's baby powder

has made me feel soft, fresh, and loved.

But baby powder is made with talc,

and the reality is that talc and asbestos usually grow together,

and so when you get one, you typically get the other,

and any product that contains talc

is often also contaminated with a low levels of asbestos.

Geologist often say that you can't separate it.

It's commingled.

Tiffany Hsu is a "New York Times" reporter

who has investigated talc-based products

for more than 5 years.

Hsu, voice-over: Even tiny fragments of asbestos

found in talc can be damaging.

This image shows an asbestos fiber

found in the sample of Claire's makeup.

This tiny fiber is 1,000 times smaller than a human hair,

and this Claire's sample

contained millions of these asbestos fibers.

The little, tiny fibers of asbestos

is what we're worried about

because they're so small that you breathe them in

and it goes all the way to the deepest part of your lung.

That's what gives people the cancers that kills them.

Talc is found in any number of cosmetics--

eyeshadow, blush, foundation, lipstick.

If you're applying makeup to your face

a couple times a day,

a couple times a week for decades,

you're getting repeated exposure that is right around the place

that asbestos needs to be to cause disease in your body.

Corrin, voice-over: Since I was a kid,

I was putting makeup on my face every day,

sometimes several times a day...

so when I got sick,

I decided to go and find out, was there really talc

in a lot of my favorite products?

This has talc.

Talc. Talc.

After Corrin was diagnosed with mesothelioma,

she decided to have the makeup products she owned