Cosmetic industry in China is relatively under-developed so a large amount of Chinese ladies are big fans for overseas world famous cosmetic brands. However, recently, an investigation, conducted by Canadian Environmental Protection on 49 kinds of cosmetic products from world-renowned brands, has found that all tested cosmetics contain several toxic substances, such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, etc, none of which has been printed on labels. Prestigious cosmetic companies, like Clinique, L’Oreal and Cover Girl, are all involved in this terrible storm.
The toxic substance limit in cosmetics varies among different countries. The table below shows limit of hazardous substances in China, USA, EU and Japan, according to Hygienic Standard for Cosmetics 2007, Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act, EU Cosmetic Directive and Pharmaceutical Affairs Law respectively.
Substance |
China |
USA |
EU |
Japan |
Mercury |
1 PPM |
1 PPM |
1 PPM |
0 PPM |
Lead |
40 PPM |
20 PPM |
10 PPM |
20 PPM |
Arsenic |
10 PPM |
3 PPM |
2 PPM |
2 PPM |
There are two possibilities that invite heavy metals in cosmetics: 1) added by manufacturers deliberately to enhance the efficacy; 2) be introduced from cosmetic raw materials inevitably, for example, dioxane belongs to a banned substance in cosmetics but it is technically unavoidable to be brought into cosmetics as impurities. Therefore, based on safety evaluation, the provisional limit for it is 30 PPM.
Since the addition of hazardous substances cannot be avoided, it is a very significant subject to keep them under a certain limit without causing harm to human. In order to improve the safety assessment of impurities in cosmetics, in 2011, Institute of Environmental Health and Related Product Safety, China CDC formulated and released a guideline for risk assessment of cosmetic raw materials (draft ) which is tailor-made to assess the impurities, introduced from the starting materials or production process, in cosmetic raw materials and finished products. Generally, the risk assessment consists of four procedures: hazard identification, dose-response assessment, exposure assessment and risk characterization. Based on the physical and chemical properties, results of toxicity test, human safety test, QSAR studies and population-based epidemiology surveys, it can be identified whether the material has potential hazard or not. If the result shows “yes”, a risk assessment report is needed to be compiled with the information on physico-chemical properties, possible adverse health effects, the analysis of risk assessment result and appropriate measures on risk control if necessary.
In conclusion, domestic and foreign manufactures should be compliant with limits specified in hygienic standard for cosmetics 2007 in China to ensure the safety of cosmetic ingredients and finished products.
Reference Link
- news release in Chinese