The study collected data from a wide range of demographic profiles across five European countries, providing a more accurate look at the frequency and amount of cosmetics products applied by the consumer.
Detailed information regarding consumer exposure is essential when evaluating the toxicological safety of ingredients in cosmetics products, and consequently the formation of chemical regulation.
The study aimed to update the currently used data which is more than 15 years old, and provide new quantitative information on habits and practices in the European Union.
The study investigated consumer exposure to six cosmetic products: body lotion; deodorant/antiperspirant (spray and non spray); lipstick; facial moisturiser; shampoo and toothpaste.
These were chosen because they are commonly used, used, with certain exceptions, by both males and females and intended to be used daily.
Information was gathered from three market research databases, the European toiletries and cosmetics database (ETCD), the ISC database, and the TNS Europanel database.
The ETCD provides information regarding the daily frequency of use of cosmetics products through the completion of diaries and questionnaires kept by participants for one week.
The data obtained from the ISC concerned the amount of product used.
Participant's cosmetics products were weighed at the beginning and end of the study period, unbeknown to the participants, and the average use per day and per application were calculated.
The TNS Europanel provide data on cosmetics purchases, and this combined with data on usage frequency allows the calculation of expected quantity per usage.
Importantly, this data gathering method involves the minimum disturbance to the subjects' cosmetics usage patterns, as subjects who use their products and are less likely to change their usage patterns than those who use novel products.
The study calculated daily exposure by multiplying the average daily frequency of use by the average amount of product use, for each of the five countries - France, Germany, Spain, Great Britain and Denmark.
The study assumed that each country could represent similar countries, for example Spain was taken to represent Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece, in order to construct a database representative of Europe.
Of particular interest to researchers was the fact that as frequency of use increases, quantity applied decreases.
Thus it is inappropriate to calculate exposure by simply multiplying maximum frequency per day and the maximum quantity - the method often used in past studies - as this will produce a falsely high value.
For example, in the case of body lotion the above method would have resulted in an exposure value of 47g per day, well above the 17g calculated by the new study.
In addition, current exposure values regarded as average, although not radically different from those calculated from the new study, represented the high end of the scale as calculated by the study.
Furthermore, the study found that there was significant variety in exposure to cosmetics products, both within and between countries and demographic categories, illustrating the need for ever more sophisticated statistical techniques to capture this variability.
Source: Food and Chemical Toxicology 2007 doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2007.06.017 "European consumer exposure to cosmetic products, a framework for conducting population exposure assessments" B. Hall, S. Tozer, B.Safford, M.Coroama, W. Steiling, M.C. Leneveu-Duchemin, C. McNamara, M. Gibney