Asian J Beauty Cosmetol. 2005; 3(1): 163-176.

Study on Hazard Heavy Metal Content in Cosmetics

We examined 36 kinds of cosmetics made in 7 different countries including white cream, message cream, lip liner cosmetic, eye liner cosmetic and pack material to investigate the content of harmful heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury in them. The results were as follows : 1. Arsenic was detected in 6 products among 36 products and the detection rate was 17%, but arsenic content of all 6 producted was under the limit value 10 ppm. 2. Lead was detected in about 56% of products, however the detection rate of massage cream and cleansing cream was 100%. Even though lead detection rate was high, the content value of Korean products was higher than that of foreign products. 3. The level of cadmium was not defined a limit value but the detection rate was 31% and the content was a level of 0.02～1.5 ppm. 4. Mercury limit value of FDA was defined as under 65 ppm in case of eye cosmetic, under 1 ppm in case of general cosmetic, bet mercury content of white cream of China product was about 618 time higher than the limit value. Among Korean products, mercury was not detected in cream and in case of lip liner cosmetic and eye liner cosmetic, The mercury content value of foreign products was higher than that of Korean products. 5. The content of heavy metal in cosmetics was a little bit higher than that in foods except fish, mussel and seaweed kinds.