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

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The survey was carried out in three steps. First of all, a search was carried out
on the Internet in order to identify products/shops/producers of “nonpreserved”
or “naturally-preserved” products. Key words like “cosmetics”,
“lotion”, “shampoo”, “hand creams” together with “without”/“free of
preservatives” or “without synthetic”/”with natural preservatives” was used
for the Internet search (in Danish in order to find products available on the
Danish market). Secondly, products were bought in retail shops, perfumeries
etc. Then a search on the Internet after products not already bought was
carried out. Some products were purchased via web shops, but declaration of
the content of chemical substances was in many cases found on the website of
the web shops. In these cases, the products were not bought but the
declaration on the web site was used.
We assume that the 89 products cover a large part of the products, that are
marketed as non-preserved” or as “naturally-preserved”, but we do not know
exactly, how many of this type of products that are available on the Danish
market.
5.1.1 Purchase of cosmetic products in retail shops
Purchase of cosmetic products has been one of the primary ways to obtain
information about the content of chemical substances in the products. Search
for cosmetic products marketed as “non-preserved” or “naturally-preserved”
has taken place in different types of shops (supermarkets, perfumeries,
pharmacies etc.) – mainly in the area of Copenhagen.
Table 5-1 presents an overview of the shops where we have found and bought
cosmetic products as well as where we have looked for products without any
result, i.e. no products marketed as “non-preserved” or “naturally-preserved”
could be found, or only products already found elsewhere were available.
Table 5-1 Shops where we have bought and looked for cosmetic products
Shops where we have looked for products Shops where we have bought products
without any result
Netto (supermarket)
COOP (supermarket)
Fakta (supermarket)
SuperBest (supermarket)
Føtex (supermarket)
Urtehuset (perfumery)
Magasin (perfumery)
Illum (perfumery)
Matas (perfumery)
Pure Shop (perfumery)
Pharmacies
Frederiksberg Privatklinik (private alternative
practice, e.g. reflexology)
The cosmetic products for this project have been found by an intense study of
the list of ingredients and of the text on the packaging before purchase.
Performing a search on the Internet before purchasing products in the shop
may therefore save time. In this way, we had an idea of which products that
were marketed as “non-preserved” or as “naturally-preserved” beforehand.
5.1.2 Purchase of cosmetic products via the Internet
After purchase of products in retail shops, a search for cosmetic products
marketed as “non-preserved” or as “naturally-preserved” via the Internet was
conducted. If a declaration of the chemical substances in the products was
available on the Internet, this declaration was used in the database. Otherwise