Heavy Metals Concentration in Facial Cosmetics

Aldayel O; Hefne J; Alharbi KN; Al-Ajyan T

doi:10.4172/2329-6836.1000303

Aldayel et al. 2018 — Heavy metals in 30 facial-cosmetic samples (Base jelly, Whitener, Sheen, Face powder) on the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia market by ICP-MS + FIMS

This open-access Natural Products Chemistry & Research study quantifies 27 elements by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (Perkin-Elmer Sciex ELAN 6100 ICP-MS) plus a separate Hg-only measurement by flow injection mercury system (Perkin Elmer FIMS-400) in 30 facial-cosmetic samples covering four product types — Base jelly, Whitener, Sheen, and Face powder — drawn from nine “most expensive” brands purchased on the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia retail market. Samples were acid-digested (HNO₃/HF/HCl, 4.5:2:0.5) in a microwave system (Milestone ETHOS 1600) following a four-step heating program; analytical accuracy was verified against IAEA-SOIL-7 certified reference material with most elements falling within the certified 95% confidence range. Concentrations are reported in ppb (µg/kg) of the as-sold finished cosmetic, separately by product type, with mean, minimum-with-RSD, and maximum-with-RSD across the brand panel for each element. The authors do not report per-brand or per-sample tabulations beyond an anonymized sample code (e.g., C1, C46, C71). Headline panel-level findings (the source’s own summary, p. 8): Face powder carries the highest mean concentration for sixteen elements (B, Mg, Al, K, V, Mn, Co, Zn, As, Se, Rb, Mo, Ag, Cd, Pb, U); Whitener carries the lowest mean for fifteen elements (Li, B, Al, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Zn, Sr, Ag, Ba, Pb, Sn, Hg); Base jelly carries the highest mean for six elements (Na, Cr, Fe, Ni, Sb, Sn); Sheen carries the highest mean for six elements (Li, Ca, Cu, Sr, Ba, Hg). Evidence tier is B: peer-reviewed open-access journal (CC BY), IAEA-SOIL-7 SRM-validated ICP-MS, but n=4-9 per product type (no within-brand replication structure reported), no LOD/LOQ table, no procedural-blank values, no per-sample (per-brand) tabulation that would allow re-aggregation, and per-element RSD values reported for some sample-pairs but not all.

Key numbers

Twenty-seven elements quantified by ICP-MS plus Hg by FIMS in 30 facial-cosmetic samples (9 Base jelly + 4 Whitener + 9 Sheen + 8 Face powder), reported as panel-level mean, min, and max in ppb (µg/kg) of as-sold cosmetic. The source’s tables also report per-cell RSD% (where measured) and the anonymized sample code(s) at which the min and max were observed; the sample codes are reproduced here for traceability but are not brand identifiers.

SRM recovery (Table 2 of source, p. 3; IAEA-SOIL-7)

The IAEA-SOIL-7 certified reference material was digested and measured alongside the samples. Most elements fall within the IAEA 95% confidence interval; departures from the certified range are noted below.

Element	IAEA certified range (ppm)	This study (ppm)	RSD%	Within certified range?
Li	15-42	39.1	3.07	yes
B	(not certified)	28.3	5.4	n/a
Na	2300-2500	2090	0.96	below (~9% low)
Mg	11000-11800	11200	1.05	yes
Al	44000-51000	47900	0.287	yes
K	11300-12700	11500	0.878	yes
Ca	157000-174000	155000	1.09	below (~1% low)
V	59-73	73.7	0.982	above (just above ceiling)
Cr	49-74	62.8	3.33	yes
Mn	(not certified)	648	1.13	n/a
Fe	25200-26300	25100	0.623	below (~0.4% low)
Co	8.4-10.1	12.4	4.32	above (~23% high)
Ni	21-37	17.2	2.22	below (~18% low)
Cu	9.0-13	11.2	1.16	yes
Zn	101-113	115	0.0825	above (~2% high)
As	12.5-14.2	14	2.23	yes
Se	0.2-0.8	1.3	34.6	above (~63% high; RSD 35%)
Rb	47-56	50.2	0.327	yes
Sr	103-114	102	1.35	below (~1% low)
Mo	0.9-5.1	1.03	3.47	yes
Ag	(not certified)	0.484	3.3	n/a
Cd	1.1-2.7	1.13	0.726	yes
Ba	131-196	131	1.36	yes (lower edge)
Pb	55-71	61.7	0.262	yes
U	2.2-3.3	2.07	0.544	below (~6% low)
Sb	1.4-1.8	1.57	1.91	yes
Sn	(not certified)	2.84	2.79	n/a

Sn, Ag, B, and Mn lack certified IAEA-SOIL-7 reference values; the source’s reported “actual work” values for those elements have no formal accuracy benchmark. Co, V, Zn, and Se sit measurably outside the IAEA certified range; Se in particular runs at ~63% above the certified upper bound with 34.6% RSD, suggesting Se quantitation in this dataset should be treated with caution. The remaining 19 elements with IAEA certified values fall inside or within ~1% of the certified range.

Base jelly (9 samples, Table 5 of source, p. 4-5; ppb = µg/kg)

Element	Mean (n=9)	Min	Min RSD%	Min sample	Max	Max RSD%	Max sample
Li	14875.5	29.2	—	C46	39900	0.57	C55
B	11080.0	BDL	—	C37, C46, C55, C63, C71	17600	12.9	C26
Na	2941444.4	353000	1.59	C37	13000000	0.79	C1
Mg	2029900.0	35100	2.45	C46	9970000	0.61	C9
Al	3661444.4	333000	1.06	C71	10200000	0.61	C9
K	987422.2	57800	3.37	C1	4650000	0.69	C9
Ca	133399.6	BDL	—	C17, C37, C46, C55	434000	2.29	C26
V	694.4	198	1.97	C26	1590	0.83	C9
Cr	3853.3	1150	4.85	C17	12800	1.89	C71
Mn	9200.0	3610	1.3	C37	13800	0.81	C26
Fe	8464444.4	1300000	1.54	C63	17300000	0.32	C1
Co	932.8	204	2.14	C63	2070	2.41	C71
Ni	7539.4	BDL	—	C9, C55	26100	0.98	C71
Cu	21368.9	8020	2.06	C9	34700	0.55	C46
Zn	58855.6	21900	2.72	C9	101000	0.36	C46
tAs	387.1	82.1	—	C71	1240	1.78	C26
Se	225.2	37.2	—	C26	582	16	C46
Rb	6241.9	88.1	7.63	C46	35800	1.47	C9
Sr	4351.4	262	6.01	C46	13400	0.26	C37
Mo	310.6	90.1	2.25	C26	662	3.6	C71
Ag	141.3	13.1	—	C37	499	2.69	C71
Cd	12.0	1.99	—	C71	38.2	10.2	C46
Ba	101979.6	966	1.67	C1	884000	0.47	C9
Pb	2024.9	157	1.11	C26	12200	0.83	C71
U	240.5	26.1	4.53	C1	1510	1.8	C71
Sb	1023.7	52.6	10.5	C9	3560	0.87	C1
Sn	60700.0	12600	0.81	C17	394000	0.3	C46
tHg	0.9	BDL	—	C17, C37	16.45	5.03	C55

BDL = below detection limit. The source does not report a numeric LOD/LOQ.

Whitener (4 samples, Table 6 of source, p. 5-6; ppb)

Element	Mean (n=4)	Min	Min RSD%	Min sample	Max	Max RSD%	Max sample
Li	14491.9	67.4	—	C36	29000	1.43	C45
B	—	BDL	—	C36, C45, C53	9550000	0.68	C25
Na	2405500.0	352000	1.14	C53	6150000	0.34	C45
Mg	934325.0	46300	3.67	C36	3200000	1.54	C45
Al	3196325.0	75300	1.22	C36	8010000	0.44	C25
K	1260250.0	138000	0.88	C36	4260000	0.95	C25
Ca	233650.0	BDL	—	C36, C53	454000	2.99	C25
V	576.4	87.4	4.90	C36	1540	1.56	C25
Cr	1670.0	1040	6.08	C36	2290	0.51	C45
Mn	2250.5	115	8.11	C36	5790	1.32	C25
Fe	218925.0	22600	5.31	C36	613000	0.86	C25
Co	111.0	53.7	2.80	C53	204	2.70	C45
Ni	2897.0	BDL	—	C53	12500	1.37	C45
Cu	7466.7	BDL	—	C36	13600	2.83	C53
Zn	17425.0	1900	5.48	C36	42600	1.64	C53
tAs	236.0	97	13.20	C53	544	1.85	C45
Se	308.5	55	—	C36	1020	—	C45
Rb	7740.1	90.5	4.11	C36	25100	0.64	C25
Sr	1546.7	BDL	—	C36	2050	0.74	C45
Mo	275.5	124	8.41	C25	663	2.18	C45
Ag	33.7	13.7	15.50	C36	64.1	3.59	C53
Cd	30.8	12.4	18.70	C25	68.5	16.30	C45
Ba	5093.5	374	7.53	C36	12300	0.75	C25
Pb	557.8	104	0.30	C36	954	1.28	C25
U	283.4	92.5	4.39	C53	833	1.99	C45
Sb	98.1	BDL	—	C36	173	5.06	C45
Sn	20250.0	16500	0.43	C36	27900	0.68	C25
tHg	0.3	0.04	8.10	C36	0.61	1.80	C53

The whitener panel-mean for B is suppressed in the source’s Table 6 (mean column blank) although the min column shows three BDL samples and one sample at 9,550,000 ppb (C25). The source does not state how the panel-mean was computed when only one of four samples is above BDL.

Sheen (9 samples, Table 7 of source, p. 6-7; ppb)

Element	Mean (n=9)	Min	Min RSD%	Min sample	Max	Max RSD%	Max sample
Li	31287.9	931	8.21	C33	162000	1.83	C51
B	11995.7	BDL	—	C42, C60	24700	3.88	C22
Na	421888.9	216000	1.71	C33	875000	1.97	C22
Mg	594966.7	30700	3.57	C42	2770000	0.23	C51
Al	4935555.6	1760000	0.90	C42	9860000	1.06	C22
K	1936666.7	408000	1.48	C33	4630000	1.27	C22
Ca	6895375.0	BDL	—	C6, C14, C22, C76	27300000	0.68	C33
V	1215.6	208	3.22	C42	4180	1.15	C14
Cr	1927.8	1020	7.17	C68	3490	2.30	C14
Mn	7156.7	1080	1.68	C42	21500	0.84	C14
Fe	2075888.9	311000	1.57	C51	9280000	1.19	C14
Co	247.4	63.9	5.92	C68	810	10.60	C33
Ni	1456.2	BDL	—	C14, C22, C51, C60	2590	1.28	C76
Cu	21494.4	510	5.62	C42	177000	0.76	C33
Zn	59371.7	BDL	—	C6, C14, C42	163000	0.21	C60
tAs	219.1	BDL	—	C76	853	4.28	C33
Se	142.3	BDL	—	C14, C22, C51, C68	224	20.30	C60
Rb	15096.7	3690	0.46	C33	33700	0.69	C22
Sr	8483.0	55.7	8.72	C42	52900	0.60	C33
Mo	168.9	BDL	—	C68, C76	228	5.05	C33
Ag	35.4	BDL	—	C22, C42, C51	76	4.15	C33
Cd	8.9	BDL	—	C14, C68, C76	19.8	12.50	C33
Ba	534331.1	3870	1.99	C42	4240000	0.84	C33
Pb	3114.2	190	1.22	C42	22500	0.29	C33
U	95.7	BDL	—	C68	288	1.29	C33
Sb	39.7	4.1	67.20	C6	107	2.87	C33
Sn	26911.1	17200	1.64	C68	46800	1.26	C33
tHg	12.6	BDL	—	C6, C14, C22	52.1	—	C51

Face powder (8 samples, Table 8 of source, p. 7-8; ppb)

Element	Mean (n=8)	Min	Min RSD%	Min sample	Max	Max RSD%	Max sample
Li	17995.9	161	1.36	C78	63700	0.78	C62
B	1345945.9	BDL	—	C35, C70, C78	10700000	1.51	C24
Na	944625.0	289000	1.52	C35	2570000	0.40	C24
Mg	13602500.0	4070000	0.43	C78	26300000	1.04	C44
Al	10111500.0	374000	0.35	C78	31000000	0.59	C24
K	10165637.5	15100	4.20	C8	29100000	1.07	C24
Ca	2768625.0	420000	3.16	C24	11600000	0.57	C62
V	5216.3	1420	2.01	C70	15700	0.77	C24
Cr	3400.0	1780	2.02	C16	5510	1.19	C35
Mn	46725.0	22200	1.07	C8	117000	0.46	C24
Fe	4391250.0	1210000	1.52	C78	8780000	0.42	C70
Co	2248.9	488	2.23	C70	5350	1.38	C35
Ni	6557.7	41.4	—	C24	22300	1.90	C35
Cu	6829.5	BDL	—	C24	20300	1.44	C70
Zn	5429993.8	2120	3.31	C16	24400000	0.83	C70
tAs	441.9	156	11.70	C8	793	6.62	C35
Se	1483.8	514	15.80	C8	4450	13.40	C44
Rb	53434.9	399	5.46	C8	185000	0.57	C62
Sr	5108.3	622	1.46	C70	24400	0.38	C24
Mo	382.8	BDL	—	C70	1210	2.97	C35
Ag	283.6	31.4	11.50	C62	1600	2.13	C24
Cd	47.1	4.63	—	C16	155	12.40	C24
Ba	41846.3	2220	1.22	C70	157000	1.06	C24
Pb	4194.3	934	2.33	C8	7710	0.73	C62
U	1789.8	91.2	2.13	C70	3250	1.07	C35
Sb	774.4	71	16.40	C16	2650	0.81	C24
Sn	31337.5	17900	0.28	C16	65100	0.31	C44
tHg	2.8	BDL	—	C8, C16, C24, C35, C44, C78	5.2	0.98	C62

Panel-level highest- and lowest-mean rankings (authors’ synthesis, Results and Discussion, p. 8)

Face powder carries the highest panel-mean concentration for sixteen elements: B, Mg, Al, K, V, Mn, Co, Zn, As, Se, Rb, Mo, Ag, Cd, Pb, U.
Face powder carries the lowest panel-mean concentration for one element: Cu.
Base jelly carries the highest panel-mean for six elements: Na, Cr, Fe, Ni, Sb, Sn.
Base jelly carries the lowest panel-mean for three elements: K, Ca, Rb.
Sheen carries the highest panel-mean for six elements: Li, Ca, Cu, Sr, Ba, Hg.
Sheen carries the lowest panel-mean for nine elements: Na, Mg, Ni, As, Se, Mo, Cd, U, Sb.
Whitener carries the lowest panel-mean for fifteen elements: Li, B, Al, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Zn, Sr, Ag, Ba, Pb, Sn, Hg.
Whitener does not carry the highest mean for any element.

HMTc-relevant maxima across the 30-sample panel

Analyte	Highest panel-mean (product type)	Highest single-sample value (sample code, product type)
Pb	4194.3 ppb in Face powder	22500 ppb in C33 (Sheen)
Cd	47.1 ppb in Face powder	155 ppb in C24 (Face powder)
tAs	441.9 ppb in Face powder	1240 ppb in C26 (Base jelly)
tHg	12.6 ppb in Sheen	52.1 ppb in C51 (Sheen)
Al	10,111,500 ppb (~1.01% by mass) in Face powder	31,000,000 ppb (~3.1% by mass) in C24 (Face powder)
Cr	3853.3 ppb in Base jelly	12800 ppb in C71 (Base jelly)
Ni	7539.4 ppb in Base jelly	26100 ppb in C71 (Base jelly)
Sn	60700 ppb in Base jelly	394000 ppb in C46 (Base jelly)
Sb	1023.7 ppb in Base jelly	3560 ppb in C1 (Base jelly)
U	1789.8 ppb in Face powder	3250 ppb in C35 (Face powder)

Regulatory comparators cited by the source (Introduction, p. 2)

The Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization standard for rouge samples (No. 1871, year 2001) is cited as setting limits of As (as As₂O₂) ≤ 2 mg/kg, Pb ≤ 20 mg/kg, Hg ≤ 1 mg/kg. Health Canada is cited as stipulating Pb ≤ 10 ppm in lipsticks (no internationally agreed limit, per the source). EU Directive 76/768/EEC and further revisions are cited as banning the use of Cd, Co, Cr, Ni, and Pb as metallic ions or salts in cosmetic formulations. The source does not present a numeric exceedance count against any of these limits; converting the maxima above to mg/kg (22.5 mg/kg Pb in C33 Sheen; 0.16 mg/kg Cd in C24 Face powder; 0.052 mg/kg Hg in C51 Sheen; 1.24 mg/kg tAs in C26 Base jelly) shows the maximum Pb sample (22.5 mg/kg in C33 Sheen) exceeds both the Saudi rouge standard (20 mg/kg Pb) and the Health Canada lipstick limit (10 ppm Pb), and the maximum tAs sample (1.24 mg/kg) sits just below the Saudi 2 mg/kg As limit. The source itself does not perform this comparison.

Methods

Sampling. Nine “most expensive” facial-cosmetic brands were purchased from the Saudi (Riyadh) retail market and assigned anonymized per-sample codes (C1, C6, C8, C9, C14, C16, C17, C22, C24, C25, C26, C33, C35, C36, C37, C42, C44, C45, C46, C51, C53, C55, C60, C62, C63, C68, C70, C71, C76, C78). Four facial-cosmetic product types were sampled across the nine brands: Base jelly (9 samples), Whitener (4 samples), Sheen (9 samples), and Face powder (8 samples), for 30 samples total. The source does not state the criteria for “most expensive,” does not report sample collection dates or lot numbers, and does not disclose brand identities (the C-codes are not brand identifiers and the brand-to-code mapping is not provided).

Sample digestion. Each sample was weighed accurately at 0.1-0.2 g into a TEFLON microwave digestion tube (120 mL). 7.0 mL of an acid mixture (HNO₃ : HF : HCl, 4.5 : 2 : 0.5) was added and the tube sealed. Microwave digestion used a Milestone ETHOS 1600 system with a four-step heating program (Step 1: 400 W, 15 min, 195 °C; Step 2: 0 W, 2 min, 195 °C; Step 3: 300 W, 10 min, 195 °C; Step 4: 400 W, 15 min, 195 °C; source Table 1, p. 2). After cooling, the lid was rinsed with distilled deionized water (DDW) and the mixture heated on a hotplate at 120 °C for 30 min to evaporate residual HF and HCl. The resulting digest was filtered through polypropylene flask using 1% HNO₃ and made up to 50 mL final volume. For ICP-MS measurement the clear digest was diluted 10-fold incorporating a 10 µg/L ¹⁰³Rh internal standard. Samples and standard reference materials were prepared in batches of six including a blank (HNO₃/HF/HCl) digest.

Reagents and standards. High-purity water (DDW, specific resistivity 18 MΩ·cm⁻¹) from an E-pure water purification system (Barnstead, USA). HNO₃, HF, and HCl were Suprapur® grade (Merck, Germany). A multi-element standard containing 27 elements was prepared from Perkin-Elmer single-element ICP standards (1000 or 10,000 ppm). The IAEA-SOIL-7 certified reference material (International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna) was used for accuracy validation.

ICP-MS instrumentation. A Perkin-Elmer Sciex ELAN 6100 inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer with quadrupole mass filter, cross-flow nebulizer, and Scott-type spray chamber was used for the 27 non-mercury elements (Li, B, Na, Mg, Al, K, Ca, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Rb, Sr, Mo, Ag, Cd, Ba, Pb, U, Sb, Sn). The source states 28 elements were detected but the tables report 27 ICP-MS elements + 1 FIMS element (Hg) for 28 total. ICP-MS was not used with chromatographic separation, so As is reported as total arsenic and Cr is reported as total Cr (the source refers to both as “As” and “Cr” without speciation qualifiers).

Mercury — FIMS instrumentation. A Perkin Elmer FIMS-400 flow-injection mercury system was used for Hg. The FIAS program “Mercury 2” used slit width 0.7 nm, wavelength 253.4 nm, technique FIAS-MHS, read time 15.0 s, read delay 0.0 s, BOC time 2.0 s, peak-height measurement, linear zero-intercept calibration, AA signal type (source Table 3, p. 4). The FIMS pumps program ran a pre-fill plus eight steps with Pump 1 speed 100 (steps pre-fill, 1, 2) and 0 (steps 3-8), Pump 2 speed 40 throughout, valve position switching between Fill and Inject (source Table 4, p. 4). The blank used in the Hg analysis contained 2 v/v% H₂SO₄, 2 v/v% HNO₃, and approximately 1.0 mg/L KMnO₄ in deionized water. All measuring standards and sample solutions were stabilized in the same medium. FIMS measures total mercury, reported here as tHg.

Quality assurance. Analytical accuracy was checked against IAEA-SOIL-7. The source’s Table 2 shows most elements falling within the IAEA 95% confidence interval; Co, V, Zn, and Se fall outside the certified range, with Se ~63% above the upper bound at 34.6% RSD — Se quantitation should be treated with caution. Sn, B, Ag, and Mn lack certified IAEA-SOIL-7 reference values. Per-sample RSD% is reported in Tables 5-8 for many cells but not for all.

Method-quality reporting gaps. The source does not report: numeric LODs or LOQs, procedural-blank values, spike-recovery percentages, within-run replicate count per sample, calibration ranges and curve-fit parameters per element, per-brand or per-sample tabulations (only anonymized codes), brand-to-code mapping, sample collection dates, lot numbers, or product label/ingredient compositions. RSD% is reported per cell in Tables 5-8 but is absent for some minimum and BDL cells. Counts of “elements detected” disagree between the abstract/methods (“28 elements”) and the actual table content (27 ICP-MS elements + 1 FIMS element = 28 elements measured; 20 elements explicitly described as “the concentration of twenty elements in ppb (µg/Kg) in the facial cosmetics … are reported” in the Results and Discussion narrative, p. 4, although the tables actually display 27 elements each — a paper-internal inconsistency).

Implications

Certification. The paper contributes Cat 2 Children Personal Care occurrence data for adult-use facial cosmetics on the Saudi retail market, with most of the panel comprising makeup-foundation-style products (Face powder, Sheen, Base jelly). The “Whitener” product type is a skin-lightening cosmetic (per the HMTc Cat 2 Step 0 lock, skin-lightening products are out of HMTc certification scope; per skin-lightening-cream the slug is retired with redirect to the public advisory page). The data are best treated as contributing to per-row marginal distributions for the makeup-foundation category, with B-tier weighting reflecting n=4-9 per product type, no per-brand tabulation, no LOD/LOQ reporting, and the Se SRM-recovery caveat. The single-sample maximum Pb in C33 (Sheen, 22.5 mg/kg) exceeds both the Saudi national rouge standard (20 mg/kg Pb) and the Health Canada lipstick limit (10 ppm Pb) cited in the source’s own introduction, but the source does not perform an explicit exceedance count.

Courses. Useful as a worked example of brand-anonymous panel design (per-sample C-codes with no brand-to-code mapping) and as a teachable example of where SRM recovery should be reviewed before downstream synthesis — Se in this dataset runs systematically above the IAEA-certified range and would warrant either re-measurement or down-weighting in synthesis. The four-product-type ranking summary (which product type carries the highest mean for which element) is a clean example of cross-product-form comparative reporting within a single study.

App. Relevant for the consumer-facing app’s adult-cosmetics scoring layer for foundation, face powder, highlighter/illuminator (Sheen), and skin-lightening (Whitener) product categories on the Middle East market. Per CLAUDE.md Part 12 the app must not surface brand-level rankings; consistent with that, this source reports anonymized per-sample values that cannot be tied to a specific brand and routes only into per-product-form aggregates downstream.

Microbiome. Not applicable — the study measures elemental impurities only, with no microbial component.

Wiki pages this source may touch

Verification notes

2026-05-18 fresh ingest (Claude Opus 4.7, autonomous v2.0 manual-fetch skill). New page; no prior wiki revision. DOI grep, raw_handle grep (MFK_heavy-metals-concentration-in-facial-cosmetics), and aldayel2018 cite-key grep against wiki/sources/ all returned zero matches before ingest.
Brand-firewall compliance (Part 12 strict, 2026-05-17 lock). The source does not disclose the identities of the nine “most expensive” brands sampled, only assigning anonymized per-sample C-codes (C1, C6, …, C78). No brand attribution had to be stripped. The “Base jelly / Whitener / Sheen / Face powder” labels are product-form descriptors (foundation jelly, skin-lightening cream, highlighter/illuminator, pressed face powder), not brand identifiers. Per-sample C-codes are reproduced in the Key numbers tables for traceability against the source’s own tables, not as brand rankings.
Wiki/HMTc firewall (Part 2). No synthesis-across-papers claims, no HMTc threshold proposals, no consumer risk advisories appear on this page. The source’s own introduction cites the Saudi rouge standard, Health Canada lipstick limit, and EU Directive 76/768/EEC; those are reported in Key numbers as the regulatory comparators the source itself names, not as cross-source synthesis by this wiki. The note that one Sheen sample (C33 Pb 22500 ppb = 22.5 mg/kg) exceeds the Saudi 20 mg/kg rouge limit and the Health Canada 10 ppm lipstick limit is an arithmetic restatement of the source’s own table value against the source’s own cited limits, not a synthesis claim.
Whitener product-type routing — out-of-scope flag. The “Whitener” product type (4 samples) is a skin-lightening cosmetic. Per the HMTc Cat 2 Step 0 lock (2026-04-28), skin-lightening products are explicitly out of HMTc certification scope (see skin-lightening-cream retirement note and the public advisory at wiki/advisory/skin-lightening-products). The [[products/skin-lightening-cream]] slug is declared in frontmatter so the four Whitener samples route somewhere defined; the routing layer will fan-out to the retired-with-redirect page, and downstream synthesis will treat the Whitener panel-mean values as advisory-only rather than as Cat 2 certification-row input. Following arshad2020 precedent (which routes Pakistani “whitening creams” to the same slug).
Base jelly product-type routing. “Base jelly” in the Saudi-market facial-cosmetics context is interpreted as a jelly-textured foundation/primer base (makeup category), routed to [[products/makeup-foundation-powders-blush]]. The source does not provide ingredient lists for the sampled products; if a future review of Saudi-market cosmetic terminology indicates “Base jelly” is petroleum-jelly-based face care (closer to face-neck-leave-on-skin-care or baby-oil-style products), the routing should be re-evaluated. [[products/face-neck-leave-on-skin-care]] is also declared as a precautionary cross-routing destination.
Sheen and Face powder product-type routing. Both Sheen (highlighter/illuminator-type product) and Face powder (pressed face powder) route to [[products/makeup-foundation-powders-blush]] as the closest existing slug. Sheen could reasonably warrant a finer-grained slug (makeup-highlighter-illuminator) at some future taxonomy refresh, but the current slug captures the product class.
Arsenic speciation. ICP-MS without chromatographic separation measures total arsenic. Reported as tAs per the speciation convention (Part 14); the source itself uses “As” (interpreted as total arsenic).
Chromium speciation. ICP-MS without chromatographic separation measures total Cr. Reported as Cr (total chromium), not Cr-VI.
Mercury speciation. FIMS-MHS measures total mercury (via reduction to Hg⁰ and cold-vapor AAS detection at 253.4 nm). Reported as tHg; the source itself uses “Hg” (interpreted as total mercury). FIMS does not distinguish MeHg from inorganic Hg.
Antimony. Sb is in the HMTc cosmetics panel of analytical interest (cosmetic Sb arises from pigments, eye-area kohl, and antimony-trioxide flame-retardant residues). The source reports Sb at panel-means 39.7-1023.7 ppb across the four product types; this is the highest in Base jelly (mean 1023.7 ppb; max 3560 ppb in C1).
Uranium. U is not on the HMTc certification analyte list but is in the metal vocabulary. Face powder shows U panel-mean of 1789.8 ppb (max 3250 ppb in C35) — flagged as anomalously high for a finished cosmetic and worth attention in any future synthesis that touches U in personal-care products.
Calibration range and percent-of-mass values. The source does not report the ICP-MS calibration range. Several Face powder Al values (e.g., C24 at 31,000,000 ppb = 3.1% by mass), Mg values (C44 at 26,300,000 ppb = 2.63%), and Zn values (C70 at 24,400,000 ppb = 2.44%) are at percent-of-mass scale, consistent with the matrix elements expected in mineral-pigment-based pressed powders (talc-based Mg; iron-oxide colorants for Fe; titanium-dioxide/clay/aluminosilicate matrix for Al; zinc-oxide-based whitening pigment for Zn). ICP-MS quantitation of major matrix elements operating far above the calibration range introduces systematic over-reporting; the values are transcribed as printed and the methodological caveat is documented here for any future synthesis that might want to interpret these high-Al, high-Mg, high-Zn values as soluble impurity versus inert pigment.
Selenium SRM recovery caveat. IAEA-SOIL-7 certified range Se 0.2-0.8 ppm; this study reports 1.3 ppm at 34.6% RSD — both 63% above the certified upper bound and an unusually high RSD compared to the other elements (most run < 5% RSD). Sample Se values should be down-weighted or re-measured before incorporation into any synthesis cell.
Element-count abstract/results inconsistency. The abstract and methods describe “Twenty-eight elements” detected by ICP-MS + FIMS, but the Results and Discussion narrative (p. 4) describes “the concentration of twenty elements in ppb (µg/Kg) in the facial cosmetics … are reported in Tables 5-8.” The tables themselves report 27 elements (ICP-MS) + Hg (FIMS) = 28 elements per product type. The “twenty” in the narrative appears to be a typographical error in the source; transcribed as displayed and flagged here.
License. The article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) per the explicit copyright statement on page 1: “This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.” The version of CC BY (3.0 vs 4.0) is not specified; license: CC BY.
DOI verified. DOI 10.4172/2329-6836.1000303 printed on every page footer of the article.
Authors verified against PDF byline. Aldayel O¹, Hefne J², Alharbi KN¹*, Al-Ajyan T¹. Affiliations: ¹King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; ²King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Corresponding author: Alharbi KN (kalharbi@kacst.edu.sa).
OCR/Unicode glitches in source PDF. The source PDF contains a number of Unicode-substitution OCR artifacts (e.g., “Нe” instead of “The”, “dLوٴerent” instead of “different”, “وٴ” instead of “ff”, “fiіeen” instead of “fifteen”, “FIDsk” instead of “flask”, “fiv” patterns) where the typesetter’s smart-quote/typographic substitution did not survive PDF encoding. Transcription on this page uses the clean English equivalents in body text; the original-PDF glyphs are not reproduced.
Whitener B (boron) panel-mean field. Table 6 of the source reports the panel-mean for B in the Whitener product type as blank (no numeric value) while showing three of four samples at BDL and one (C25) at 9,550,000 ppb. The source does not state how the mean was computed or whether it was suppressed because of the one-of-four-above-BDL pattern. Transcribed with the panel-mean cell as ”—“.
Audit subagent (2026-05-18, general-purpose fresh-context, v2.0 skill Phase 2) — verdict PROMOTE. Check 1 numerical fidelity ⚠️ on a single finding; Checks 2, 3, 4, 5 all ✅. The audit cross-verified every row of the SRM Table 2 (27 elements), all four product-type tables (Tables 5-8; 28 rows each including tHg), the authors’ ranking summary (face-powder/whitener/base-jelly/sheen highest-and-lowest counts), the HMTc-maxima cross-reference table, and the unit conversions. The single ⚠️ flagged the EU 76/768/EEC ban-list passage, claiming the PDF lists only “Co, Cr, Ni, and Pb” while the wiki added “Cd.” Verified against PDF page 2 — the audit finding is a false positive. The PDF text reads verbatim: “the European Communities Directive 76/768/EEC and further revisions banned the use of Cd, Co, Cr, Ni, and Pb as metallic ions or salts in the preparation of cosmetic formulations [30].” The wiki page’s five-metal transcription (Cd, Co, Cr, Ni, Pb) matches the source. No correction applied.

Ingest log

2018-01-12 (publication): Natural Products Chemistry & Research 6(1): 1000303. Received Nov 5 2017; accepted Dec 18 2017; published Jan 12 2018. CC BY (open access).
2026-05-18 fresh ingest (Claude Opus 4.7, autonomous v2.0 manual-fetch skill): NEW path. Three identity checks against wiki/sources/ (DOI grep, raw_handle grep, cite-key grep) returned zero matches. PDF read via the Read tool. All nine pages of the PDF read in full (abstract, introduction, materials and methods, Tables 1-4 method tables, Tables 5-8 results tables for Base jelly / Whitener / Sheen / Face powder, Results and Discussion narrative, conclusion, acknowledgement, 54 references). Source page written; routing audit refreshed (2 product-page rows; 0 unresolved; 0 blocking malformed; skin-lightening-cream slug declared but filtered from routing per retirement status); ingest committed at 6cf21f7; queued for audit.
2026-05-18 Phase 2 audit (fresh-context Agent subagent, general-purpose): Verdict PROMOTE. SRM Table 2 (27 elements), all four product-type tables (Tables 5-8; 28 element rows each across 30 samples), authors’ ranking summary, HMTc-maxima cross-reference table, and unit conversions all verified against PDF. One Check 1 ⚠️ on the EU 76/768/EEC ban-list passage — verified against PDF p. 2 as a false positive (the PDF text explicitly names “Cd, Co, Cr, Ni, and Pb”; the wiki transcription is correct). Checks 2 (slug vocabulary), 3 (speciation and methods), 4 (Part 12 brand firewall), 5 (Part 2 wiki/HMTc firewall) all ✅. No corrections applied; false-positive documented in Verification notes.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.

Commit	Date	Description
ce3e07c	2026-05-28	activation \| Vercel DATACITE env slots set, curators.md filled with founder entry + six scoped reviewer invitations, peer-review onboarding playbook drafted
51400b9	2026-05-28	audit-queue: gasparik2017-wild-boar-slovakia-metals audited-revised

Heavy Metal Index

Index