Comparative study of heavy metals content in cosmetic products of different countries marketed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

1 Introduction

Cosmetics products since the dawn of civilization (Brown, 2013) are considered a part of routine body care. During the last few decades these products have had a big boost (Al-Dayel et al., 2011) and applied to the human body for beautification. These cosmetic products include, care creams, talcum and face powders, lipsticks, kajal, sindoor, eye makeup, mouthwashes etc. (Chauhan et al., 2010). Apart from the demand of availability of cosmetic products in markets, the health awareness draws the attention of researcher and clinician (Nnorom et al., 2005) to find the adverse effects regarding heavy metal contamination (Saeed et al., 2010; Barakat, 2011).

Some cosmetics are benign; others can cause or are supposed to cause harmful effects such as cancer, allergic reaction, mutations, respiratory problems as well as development and reproductive problems (CDC, 2003). For instance, an increase level of cadmium has been reported to cause inhibition of DNA mismatches. Zinc has been reported to cause the same signs of illness as does lead, and can easily be mistakenly diagnosed as lead poisoning (Theresa et al., 2013). Heavy metal poisoning takes place in the form of various diseases when ingested or inhaled (Saeed et al., 2011) as shown in Table 3.

2 Materials and methods

3 Results and discussion

The number of selected cosmetics products was fifteen, three each for lipstics, powder, surma, cream and shampoo. An analytical estimation test was performed for eight elements in the lipstics, talc powder, surma (Kohls), cream and shampoo from Kohat market, Pakistan summarized in Table 1. The data presented in Table 1 showed a marked difference from the data reported worldwide in the literature (Table 2). Comparing the results within each class it is clear that Fe, Zn, Pb and Cu concentration in the samples under investigation are higher (Fig. 1).

Close

Figure 1

Comparative mean concentration of heavy metal content in cosmetic products.

Export to PPT

The overall (n = 15) mean concentration of heavy metals analyzed were: 141.6 ± 0.016 μg/g (range 1.74–1071 μg/g) with highest concentration in Surma (S-2) and lowest in creams (C-1) for Pb; 0.238 ± 0.001 μg/g (0.41–0.942 μg/g) with the highest concentration in surma (S-2) and minimum in cream (C-1 and C-2) for Cd; 26.62 ± 0.012 μg/g (0.02–302 μg/g) with the highest concentration observed in surma (S-2) followed by the lowest concentration in lipstics (L-1) for Cu; 0.527 ± 0.002 μg/g (0.183–1.225 μg/g) with maximum concentration value in powder (P-3) and minimum value in shampoo (Sh-1) for Co; 860.8 ± 0.061 μg/g (27.97–2469 μg/g) with the highest concentration in cream (C-3) and lowest one in shampoo (Sh-1) for Fe; 0.074 ± 0.002 μg/g (ND-0.774 μg/g) with the highest concentration in lipstics (L-3) followed by lower concentration: not detectable in (L-1, L-2, P-1, P-2, S-1, S-3, all cream samples) for Cr; 0.674 ± 0.002 μg/g (0.095–1.610 μg/g), the maximum value was in lipstics (L-3) and minimum value in shampoo (Sh-1) for Ni; and 268.6 ± 0.086 μg/g (0.637–1500 μg/g) with the highest concentration for Zn was analysed in Shampoo (Sh-3) sample.

Based on the mean concentrations (Table 2), the mean (n = 3) heavy metal contents were arranged in the following decreasing order: Fe > Pb > Cu > Zn > Ni > Co > Cd > Cr for lipstics; Fe > Zn > Pb > Cu > Ni > Co > Cd > Cr for powder; Pb > Fe > Zn > Cu > Ni > Co > Cd > Cr for surma (Kohl); Fe > Cu > Zn > Pb > Ni > Co > Cd > Cr for cream; Zn > Fe > Pb > Cu > Co > Ni > Cd for shampoo. Most of the cosmetic products in this study were found to contain high concentration of heavy metals, particularly, Pb, Cu, Fe and Zn which showed a wide variation among the samples (Fig. 1). The optimum values of heavy metals in different cosmetics products have also been displayed (Table 4), showing the importance of the results. There values of heavy metals in each class were nearly close to each other which made the results more interesting.

Keeping in view their toxicology, the estimation of toxic metals in cosmetic products has prompted us to carry out this study. Unfortunately there are no current international standards for impurities like heavy metals in cosmetics except 20 for lead and 5 μg/g for cadmium (Al-Dayel et al., 2011). The Canadian regularity limits for certain metals in cosmetics are 10 for Pb, 3 for As, Cd, Hg and 5 μg/g for Sb (Health Canada, 2011). Heavy metals are considered toxic above normal backgrounds as shown in Table 3. These limits are based to provide a high level of protection to susceptible consumer (Al-Dayel et al., 2011).

The comparison with literature (Table 2) of current study (Table 1) revealed that the concentrations of heavy metals in cosmetic products are: The highest concentration of Pb found in surma (1071 μg/g) was lower than those obtained for mascara (9500 μg/g) (Al-Dayel et al., 2011); the highest concentration of Cd (0.942 μg/g) in surma was found to be lower than maximum value of hair pomade (6.80 μg/g) and higher than most of the investigations in the literature (Table 2); maximum concentration of Cu (302 μg/g) was found to be higher than all of the studies conducted for cosmetic products; the maximum value of Co (1.02 μg/g) obtained for powder in this study was found to be lower than those reported elsewhere (Nnorm, 2011); the value for Fe (2468 μg/g) for cream was found to be higher than cream and lower than eye shade (3760) reported in the literature (Al-Dayel et al., 2011); the highest concentration of Cr, Ni and Zn in our study was found to be lower than the reported value (Table 2). Various other studies have also been reported for heavy metal concentration in different cosmetic products (Al-Dayel et al., 2011). It is recommended that the consumer of cosmetics products must be selective while purchasing these products.

Knowledge about the prolonged use of cosmetic products and its subsequent health effects are lacking. We are a culture in love with lipstick which starts very early for many women. A recent survey conducted in 2004 showed most of the US girls aged 7–19 with 63 percent are using lipstics. When lips are licked, while eating and drinking, kissing someone wearing lipstics, we ingest the ingredient of lipstics. It is a common quote that “women inadvertently eat about 4 lb of lipstics in a lifetime”. A poison kiss which is associated with direct ingestion of lipstics containing lead may increase the level of lead in human body (CSC, 2007). The elevated level of lead found in two of the samples indicates that pregnant women are vulnerable population because it can easily pass through the placenta. Cadmium is known to be toxic in cosmetics like talcum powder and its toxicity increases in case of children. Studies of the health effects conducted on Kohl, a highly contaminated eye cosmetic product showed that adult absorb 5–15 and children can absorb round about 41% of the ingested lead (Al-Dayel et al., 2011). These heavy metals bind with the protein of the cell, thus hindering its function and causing death of the cells which lead to multiple diseases (Prasad and Shanker, 2008). The present study has only demonstrated that cosmetic products are notable sources of Pb, Cd, Cu, Co, Fe, Cr, Ni and Zn in human body as well as in the environment. Further study is required on the absorbed level and the number of persons exposed to it, particularly susceptible group and a highly exposed group. Therefore, there is a need for the establishment of regulations for heavy metals in personal care products as this will act to prevent harm in advance from the use of these products.

4 Conclusion

This study investigated the level of heavy metals in cosmetic products of different countries marketed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It provided new data on heavy metal concentration in cosmetic products used in Pakistan. Only two samples contained high level of Pb concentration, four samples with high level of Zn, whereas most of these cosmetic products contained high level of Fe. For cosmetics i.e. lipstics, talc powder, surma, cream and shampoo, dermal exposure is suspected to be the most significant exposure route since they are in direct contact with the skin.

It revealed that high and nearly close values of heavy metals among samples of each class may be due to the spurious nature (fake branded name) of the samples. It will be premature to jump at the conclusion to decide the fate of these products on the bases of concentration of heavy metals as there are no proper safety regulations in Pakistan. However, the possibilities of spuriousness of these products cannot be ignored. The data obtained clearly showed that further studies are also needed of these heavy metals in cosmetic products of daily use. Acceptable limits of potential contaminants in cosmetics must be enforced. The principle of good manufacturing practice must be followed. There is need for an assessment of human risk from the exposure to cosmetics which are highly contaminated with heavy metals. It was inferred from the result that most of the products were Pakistani (highly), Indian (fairly) and brands of some other countries (less) were contaminated with heavy metals. Removal of heavy metals from personal care products after manufacture is not possible, however if careful selection of the raw material is made keeping in view the heavy metal contents we can improve the quality of the products and save the beauty of the environment.