Research to be published in an upcoming issue of Food and Chemical Toxicology explores a means to determine the aggregate exposure to phthalates of consumers using multiple cosmetics in parallel.
Understanding these exposures is critical to ensuring cosmetic products and their tandem use are safe for consumers. Furthermore, phthalates have made headlines in recent years due to their potential endocrine-disrupting effects; which again, are determined by the exposure dose. Typically, phthalates are used as fragrance ingredients, plasticizers and solvents.
According to the present authors, combining exposures could provide a more realistic estimation of the user's risk. As such, combined product scenarios were determined by ranking the frequency of co-use patterns and the number of cosmetics used. These scenarios were validated by comparing the results to those of a receptor-based aggregate exposure assessment.
The resulting aggregate exposure dose (AED) increased with the number of cosmetics in the scenarios. It also was higher in females and in younger groups. The authors concluded this method could provide reasonable aggregate exposure information to inform future product development.
