1. Placenta

The perks of placenta are making headlines these days, but you might be surprised to find that some products already contain it. In most cases, it’s animal placenta, but use caution if you’re pregnant or trying to conceive. Because placenta is storehouse for hormones, use of it can cause issues with your baby. It’s not terribly common, but if you’re unsure, it pays to find out more about a product before using it.

2. Lanolin

Lanolin might sound harmless enough, but it’s actually made from the grease in animal fur. I used lanolin cream while I was breastfeeding, but it also appears in some lipsticks. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I want that stuff in or near my mouth. Gross!

3. Ambergris

Otherwise known as whale vomit, ambergris is worth a lot of money and is used in a bunch of high dollar perfumes. This might sound like an urban legend, and indeed I thought the same, until I uncovered information revealing just how pricey this stuff is. It works to enhance the good smelling scents in a bottle of perfume and doesn’t have a powerful scent of its own. Rethinking your bottle of perfume?

4. Beetle Carcasses

No, you won’t find it listed on a cosmetic by that name. You’ll see “carmine” instead. To make red cosmetics, including lipstick and blush, manufacturers use the beetles to produce that red hue. The beetles get it by feeding on the prickly pear cactus. They are removed from the plant, boiled and crushed to get the carmine and then used to color make-up.

5. Fish Scales

If you paint your nails at all, you might have a bottle of polish made from fish scales. Ewww! It’s listed on labels as guanine and lends your favorite shades that pearly effect that we all love so much. The scales are scraped from dead fish, then suspended in alcohol. It’s then swirled into the nail polish for your enjoyment.

6. Mink Oil

How’s this for gross? Some make-up manufacturers scrape the oil off the backs of minks and use it in certain moisturizing cosmetics. I’m not sure I want that on my face, but it would be far worse being the person who has to do the harvesting of the oil. Sometimes, the oil from emus is used in the same way.

7. Road Kill

Road kill is used for the harvesting of tallow, a fatty substance that is present in the bodies of many animals, including raccoons, foxes and skunks. The tallow is used in many cosmetics, including eye shadow and lipstick to give them emollient properties and make them moisturizing. Grossed out?

Did any of these things surprise you? I immediately went and read the ingredients in all of my favorite products? Are you getting up to do the same right now?