Beauty’s Hidden Villain

From mascara to lipstick, Kashmiri consumers are unknowingly exposed to toxic chemicals.

- Azra Khan

I remember the morning I noticed the mascara brush felt different. | had just applied it, as | always do, tracing my lashes in the mirror before heading out. A thought lingered: what if the very products I trusted to make me look awake, confident, and ready were doing something else, silently, inside my body?

Across Srinagar, women, teenagers, and mothers perform the same rituals, applying foundation, lipstick, or eyeliner, often imported from distant markets, often promising perfection.

Few know these products may contain PFAS: perand polyfluoroalkyl substances, called “forever chemicals” because they never leave.

PFAS make makeup long-lasting, smudge-proof, waterproof. They cling through rain, tears, and endless days. They linger inside us in ways we cannot track.