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The analysis of composition of products dedicated to "sensitive skin" and "atopic skin" with regard to the presence of ingredients with known sensitizing or irritating potential
Magdalena Zymla, Radoslaw Spiewak
Recommended citation format: Zymla M, Spiewak R: The analysis of composition of products dedicated to "sensitive skin" and "atopic skin" with regard to the presence of ingredients with known sensitizing or irritating potential. Estetol Med Kosmetol 2016; 6: 003.en.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14320/EMK.2016.003.en
The terms "sensitive skin" and "atopic skin" placed on the containers with cosmetic products may suggest greater safety of these products. However, even cosmetics marked with such declarations may contain substances with known sensitizing and irritating potential. Aim: verifying, if problematic substances occur in cosmetics dedicated to sensitive and atopic skin or possibly, if there is a difference in counts of those substances in both groups. Additional aim was to examine a relationship between the price and the number of problematic substances contained in a cosmetic. Materials and methods: 282 cosmetics were submitted to analysis, including 190 dedicated to sensitive skin and 92 dedicated to atopic skin. Problematic substances were selected based on Cosing database and European Cosmetics Directive. Chi-square test was run to determine which group contains more substances included in annexes to European Cosmetics Directive. Differences in occurrence of problematic substances in both groups was examined using Mann-Whitney U test. Whereas relationship between the price and the number of problematic substances was examined in Rho-Spearman test. Results: 90 ingredients with known sensitizing and irritating potential were found (46 in cosmetics to "atopic skin", 88 to "sensitive skin"). Only 31 (11%) cosmetics were free of any problematic substances. Products dedicated to sensitive skin contained substantially more colorants, UV filters and fragrances (parfum). Considering entirety of problematic substances, cosmetics dedicated to sensitive skin (median=4) contained substantially more of those ingredients than cosmetics dedicated to atopic skin. Furthermore, there was weak positive correlation (r=0.163, p=0.006) between the price and the number of problematic substances with known sensitizing and irritating potential. Conclusions: Both, cosmetics dedicated to sensitive skin and atopic skin, despite producer declaration about their safety composition, contain problematic substances and merely one in ten cosmetics did not contain any of them. Products dedicated to sensitive skin are worse than products dedicated to atopic skin, because they contain more substances with known sensitizing and irritating potential. Higher price does not guarantee a better safety, in contrary, it is often associated with greater numbers of problematic ingredients.
Keywords: cosmetic products, atopic skin, sensitive skin, irritation, allergy, adverse reaction to cosmetics, irritants, sensitizers, allergy to cosmetics
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