Survey and health assessment of cosmetic products ... - Miljøstyrelsen

1 Introduction
1.1 Background
In many cases, cosmetic products contain preservatives in order to ensure a
long shelf life. It is typically cosmetic products with a high content of water
that are preserved in order to avoid bacteria growth (Kabara & Orth, 1996).
According to the EU Cosmetic Directive 768 (1976), only specific
preservatives (the positive list) may be used for the preservation of the
cosmetic products.
Especially for creams and lotions, the necessity of preservatives has been
discussed. Creams and lotions are particular exposed to bacteria growth, when
we daily put our more and less contaminated fingers (with bacteria on) in the
pot of cream. In general, it is as mentioned above considered necessary to
preserve aqueous products in order to obtain microbiological stability (=
longer shelf life). However, in August 2008 a Danish magazine published a
paper with results of a test showing that even for “natural” creams free from
specifically added preservatives, the shelf life of the products was not affected
(TÆNK, 2008). These creams contained essential oils, alcohols and
perfumes which according to the test results worked effectively as substitutes
for added preservatives.
A number of cosmetic products are marketed as not containing preservatives
or not containing specific preservatives. These types of products fall into three
categories:
1) Marketed/labelled as “not containing preservatives”, “without
preservatives” or similar.
2) Marketed/labelled as “not containing chemical preservatives”, “not
containing synthetic preservatives”, “only containing natural
preservatives” or similar.
3) Marketed/labelled as not containing a specific type of preservatives;
often “not containing parabens”, “free of parabens” or similar.
This project will focus on the first two categories. Products that are
marketed/labelled as e.g. “free of parabens” are not investigated in this
project, as paraben-free products may either contain other types of added
preservatives or may be entirely without added preservatives.
There has been information in the media about the potential adverse health
effects of many added preservatives; therefore, consumers may rank a
naturally-preserved product as better than a preserved product – with respect
to allergenic and other properties, as they may be unaware of the fact that
many naturally occurring substances may be allergenic or have other health
effects.
The marketing statement/label may therefore falsely lead the consumers to
believe that naturally-preserved or non-preserved products are superior to
preserved products. Therefore, the Danish EPA wanted to examine the
constituents of this type of products, as they wanted to expand their
knowledge of these preservatives.
15