Heavy Metal Index

Heavy metal in cosmetics and its risk to future generation in remote area of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Trarkhel District Sudhnoti

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Source access

Publication
Scientific Reports 15: 43847
Year
2025
Authors
Bashir H; Ibrahim ABM; Ullah H; Anwar S
Source type
peer reviewed
License
CC BY NC ND 4.0

Bashir et al. 2025 — Pb, Cd, Cu, Co, Ag, Ni, Zn, tAs, Mn, tHg in 30 adult cosmetic samples (lipsticks, beauty creams, nail polishes), Trarkhel District Sudhnoti, AJ&K, Pakistan

This Scientific Reports paper quantifies ten heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Cu, Co, Ag, Ni, Zn, total As, Mn, total Hg) by graphite-furnace atomic absorption spectroscopy (Perkin Elmer AAS-700) in 30 cosmetic products — 10 lipsticks, 10 beauty creams (including facial sunblocks and acne cream), and 10 nail polishes — sampled in 2023 from local markets in the remote Trarkhel area of District Sudhnoti, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan. Branded and counterfeit-suspect imports as well as locally manufactured products were sampled in roughly equal numbers per category. The paper computes dermal Systemic Exposure Dosage (SED), Margin of Safety (MoS), Hazard Quotient (HQ), Hazard Index (HI), and Lifetime Cancer Risk (LCR) at both 50% and 100% bioaccessibility assumptions, applying SCCS dermal-exposure parameters (lipstick SAA 4.8 cm² AA 0.05 g/cm²; beauty cream SAA 565 cm² AA 1.54 g/cm²; nail polish SAA 580 cm² AA 3.5 g/cm² applied 0.1 frequency/day, retention factor 1/week 20 min). MoS, HQ, and HI exceeded permissible boundaries for most lipsticks, beauty creams, and nail polishes; LCR surpassed the USEPA 1 × 10⁻⁶ acceptable threshold in every product category except lipsticks. Pb in many lipstick samples and Hg in two branded beauty creams (3 047 and 511 mg/kg) markedly exceeded Health Canada (10 mg/kg Pb) and USFDA (1 mg/kg Hg) cosmetic limits.

Key numbers

  • Sample basis (Table 2, pp. 6-8; n = 30 total): 10 lipsticks (5 branded codes BL1, BL3, BL5, BL8, BL9 + 5 local codes LL2, LL4, LL6, LL7, LL10), 10 beauty creams (5 branded codes BBC1, BBC14, BBC15, BBC17, BBC19, BBC20 — six codes listed; the table reports “Mean (n = 5)” for branded creams, suggesting one sample was dropped or one of the listed codes is a parallel BDL-row not included in the mean — see Verification notes), 5 local creams LBC1, LBC3, LBC16, LBC18 (LBC table row also reports “Mean (n = 5)”, so a fifth local-cream code exists in the table that I could not enumerate from the supplied page chunks), and 10 nail polishes (5 branded codes BNP26-BNP30 + 5 local codes LNP21-LNP25). Sample weight 4 g per replicate, in triplicate; measurements reported as mean ± SD (Materials and Methods, p. 4; Statistical analysis, p. 5).

  • Lipsticks — overall mean across n = 10 (Table 2, p. 6; mg/kg):

    • Pb 23.3 (range 0.85-62.22), Cd 1.35 (0.75-2.8), Cu 62.1 (0.375-316.87), Co 13.8 (7.16-53.8), Ag 0.733 (1.09-3.86 — see Verification notes; minimum < mean is a table-print anomaly), Ni 89.3 (0.25-731), Zn BDL, tAs BDL, Mn 79.8 (0.28-151 in mean-and-range row; per-sample BL1 reports Mn 395 ± 0.15), tHg BDL.
    • Branded lipsticks (n = 5, mean) Pb 22.774, Cd 1.39, Cu 58.26, Co 18.92, Ag 0.886, Ni 30.2, Mn (per-sample max 395 in BL1; per-row mean not enumerated in extracted view), tHg BDL.
    • Local lipsticks (n = 5, mean) Pb 23.9, Cd 1.31, Cu 66.00, Co 8.76, Ag 0.579, Ni 148, Mn (max 189 in LL10), tHg BDL.
    • Extremes: highest Pb in lipsticks 62.22 ± 0.09 mg/kg (BL1, branded), exceeding Health Canada limit 10 mg/kg by ≈ 6×; highest Ni 731 ± 3.18 mg/kg (LL1, local), ≈ 73× the EU 10 mg/kg cosmetics-Ni guidance; highest Mn 395 ± 0.15 mg/kg (BL1, branded), well above WHO 3 mg/kg cosmetics Mn reference cited in Table 1.

  • Beauty creams (branded + local, n = 10 each row; Table 2, p. 7; mg/kg):

    • Overall mean (n = 10): Pb 6.21, Cd 1.35, Cu 3.52, Co 28.9, Ag 0.362, Ni 11.0, Zn 166, tAs 1.56, Mn 0.105, tHg 358.
    • Branded creams (n = 5 mean): Pb 6.902, Cd 1.30, Cu 5.41, Co 44.2, Ag 0.358, Ni 17.64, Zn 69.8, tAs 0.520, Mn 0.105, tHg 511.37.
    • Local creams (n = 5 mean): Pb 5.15, Cd 1.42, Cu 0.678, Co 6.10, Ag 0.368, Ni 1.240, Zn 263, tAs BDL, Mn 0.105, tHg 129.
    • Extremes: highest tHg 3 047 ± 0.05 mg/kg in a single branded cream (BBC1), ≈ 3 047× the USFDA 1 mg/kg cosmetics-Hg limit; second-highest tHg 511 ± 0.01 mg/kg (BBC1 reports 3 047 in one printed cell, 511.37 as branded-cream mean — both reproduced as the paper prints them; range 0.0045-14 507 tHg across the literature cross-comparison row in Table 2, p. 7). Highest Co 243.5 ± 0.01 mg/kg in the same BBC1 branded cream; highest Zn 996 ± 0.05 mg/kg in LBC1 (local); highest tAs 2.68 ± 0.03 mg/kg in BBC1 (branded), ≈ 5× the EU 0.5 mg/kg cosmetics-As guidance cited in Table 1.

  • Nail polishes (n = 10; Table 2, p. 8; mg/kg):

    • Overall mean (n = 10): Pb 0.43 (range BDL-2.97), Cd 1.49 (1.28-1.66), Cu 5.00 (0.25-46.3), Co 6.18 (0.4-12.7), Ag 0.292 (0.187-0.37), Ni 0.092 (BDL-0.712), Zn BDL, tAs BDL, Mn (paper does not enumerate the n = 10 nail-polish mean in the extracted view; LNP-row max 1.02 mg/kg, BNP-row max 11 mg/kg in BNP27, branded), tHg BDL.
    • Branded nail polishes (n = 5 mean): Pb 0.59, Cd 1.54, Cu 0.395, Co 4.71, Ag 0.302, Ni BDL, Mn 2.33, tHg BDL.
    • Local nail polishes (n = 5 mean): Pb 0.87, Cd 1.44, Cu 9.61, Co 7.65, Ag 0.282, Ni 0.185, Mn 0.410, tHg BDL.
    • Extremes: highest Pb in nail polish 2.97 ± 0.08 mg/kg (both BNP30 branded and LNP25 local report 2.97); highest Cu 46.3 ± 0.73 mg/kg (LNP22, local); all nail polishes BDL for Zn, tAs, and tHg.

  • Reference limits used by the paper for cross-comparison (Table 1, p. 2; mg/kg unless noted):

    • Cosmetics: USFDA Pb 20, Cd 3, Cu 200, Co < 170, Ni 50, Ag 10, tHg 1. WHO Pb 2, Cd 1, tHg 3. Health Canada Pb 10, Cd 3, Ni 1, tHg 3. Germany Pb 0.5, Cd 0.1, tHg 0.1. EU Ni 10, tAs 0.5.
    • Drinking water (Table 1 left section): WHO Pb 0.01 mg/L, Cd 0.003 mg/L, tHg 0.001 mg/L (organic Hg) and 0.006 mg/L (metallic/inorganic Hg, value reported in the table as 0.006 ng/kg with a footnote indicating different unit basis); USEPA Pb 0.015 mg/L, Cd 0.005 mg/L, tHg 0.002 mg/L; NEQS-Pakistan Pb < 0.05 mg/L, Cd 0.01 mg/L, tHg < 0.001 mg/L. (Drinking-water values are cited as ambient context; this study does not measure water.)

  • Dermal SED parameters (SCCS-derived; Methods p. 5):

    • Lipstick: SAA 4.8 cm², AA 0.05 g/cm², F (frequency) 1 application/day, RF (retention factor) 2, BF (bioaccessibility factor) 1 or 0.5, BW 70 kg.
    • Beauty cream: SAA 565 cm², AA 1.54 g/cm², F 1/day, RF 2, BW 70 kg.
    • Sunblock: SAA 1 425 cm², AA 3.7 g/cm², F 1/day, RF 2.
    • Nail polish (hair-dye-analogous parameters): SAA 580 cm², AA 3.5 g/cm², F 0.1/day (≈ 1× per 10 days), RF 0.14 (1 week × 20 min retention), assumed 50% systemic bioavailability per SCCS.

  • Risk-assessment outcomes (Results pp. 15-17; Tables S4-S7 referenced):

    • MoS (target ≥ 100 per WHO/SCCS):
      • Branded lipsticks 50% bioaccessibility: Pb 1.18 E+05, Co 2.03 E+04, Cu 3.87 E+03, Ni 1.14 E+04, Mn 1.05 E+02, Cd 3.99 E+00 (below 100 — concern). At 100% bioaccessibility, MoS values for Pb (1.12 E+05), Co (4.38 E+04), Cu (4.40 E+03), Mn (2.47 E+02), Ni (2.33 E+02), Cd (2.85 E+00) all remain at the safe margin for Pb-Co-Cu-Mn-Ni; Cd persistently fails.
      • Branded creams 50% bioaccessibility: Pb 3.45 E+01, Cd 2.23 E+00, Co 2.14 E+00, Ni 5.61 E-03, tAs 1.15 E+00, tHg 7.57 E-03 — all below 100. Cu (1.20 E+01) and Mn (9.28 E+00) also below threshold. Zn (2.41 E+01) below 100 but Karen’s wiki convention treats Zn separately.
      • Local creams: Pb (1.52 E+02) and Cu (1.11 E+02) above 100; Cd, Co, Ni, Mn, Zn, tHg, tAs all below 100. tAs MoS at 50% bioaccessibility = 2.31 E+01.
      • Branded nail polishes: Pb 1.12 E+01, Cu 3.48 E+02, Ag 1.01 E+02, Co and Ni “well above the benchmark.”
      • Local nail polishes: Pb 1.20 E+01, Co 1.44 E+01 — both safety-deficient relative to MoS = 100.
    • HQ / HI at 100% bioaccessibility (Table S6):
      • Branded creams: Ni HQ 1.05 E+01, tAs 7.26 E+00, Cd 2.54 E+01, tHg 2.08 E+03; cumulative HI 2.15 E+03 — pronounced cumulative health risk.
      • Local creams: similar trends; nail polishes (local) Cd HQ 8.37 E+00, Cu HQ 6.96 E+00, Mn HQ 6.51 E+01 — substantial HI = 2.82 E+01.
      • Branded and local nail polishes (overall HQ < 1) except as above.
      • Lipsticks (most samples HQ < 1) except Cd in local lipstick LL7 (HQ ≈ 1.75 E+01) — one isolated lipstick sample with elevated Cd.
    • LCR (Lifetime cancer risk; USEPA threshold band 1 × 10⁻⁶ to 1 × 10⁻⁴; Pb, Cd, Ni, tAs, tHg analysed as carcinogenic metals): at 50% and 100% bioaccessibility, LCR exceeded the upper bound 1 × 10⁻⁴ for branded and local beauty creams, branded and local nail polishes — but lipsticks remained within or below the acceptable band. Figure 12B reports cumulative LCR ≈ 5.7 (in HQ-level-50% units) at 100% bioaccessibility, dominated by Ni in branded beauty creams.

  • Statistical-correlation findings (Statistical analysis p. 15; Tables S3 referenced):

    • Branded lipsticks: strong positive associations Pb-Cu (r = 0.915), Pb-Ag (r = 0.898), Pb-Ni (r = 0.959). Local lipsticks: Cd-Mn r = 0.939, Cu-Ag r = 0.933, Ni-Ag r = 0.923, Pb-Ag r = -0.657 (negative).
    • Branded beauty creams: Cu-Hg r = 0.999, Cu-Ni r = 1, Cu-Zn r = 1, Cu-As r = 1, Hg-Pb-Mn r = 0.713 (multivariate).
    • Local beauty creams: Pb-Cu strong negative r = -1.00; Pb-Ni r = -0.954; Pb-Co r = -0.526; Pb-Hg r = -0.409 — indicating divergent contamination sources within local-cream subset.
    • Across the dataset, the paper concludes multivariate analysis shows “strong correlation among Pb, Cu, Ni, Ag, Hg, and Cd, alongside a noticeable divergence for Cd and Cu, Co, Ag, Ni, and Mn” (Conclusion, p. 17).

  • Method-LOD/LOQ (Materials and methods, p. 4; Supplementary Table S1 referenced): Perkin Elmer AAS-700 (graphite-furnace AAS); calibration 0.02-10 mg/kg; R² ≥ 0.98; RSD < 5.8%; LOD and LOQ derived from signal-to-noise ratios 3 and 10 (specific element-by-element LOD values reported in Supplementary Table S1, not enumerated in the body text). Sample preparation: 4 g cosmetic sample wet-digested in 4:1 conc. HNO₃ (65%) : HClO₄ (70-72%), hot-plate ramp 10 → 110 °C in 5-10 °C / 10-15 min increments to near-dryness, residue volume ≈ 2 mL, filtered through Whatman No. 42, diluted to 50 mL with deionized water. Standard addition method used to correct matrix effects. Body weight assumed 70 kg adult per SCCS.

Methods (brief)

Thirty cosmetic samples (10 lipsticks, 10 beauty creams including 3 facial sunblocks, 10 nail polishes; mix of branded and locally manufactured) were collected from local markets in Trarkhel, District Sudhnoti, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K), Pakistan in 2023; shipped to the lab and stored at 4 °C until analysis. 4 g of each sample was wet-digested with a 4:1 mixture of concentrated nitric acid (65%) and perchloric acid (70-72%) in a 100 mL beaker on a hot plate in a fume hood; temperature was ramped 10 → 110 °C in controlled 5-10 °C / 10-15 min increments to near-dryness (residue ≈ 2 mL), filtered through Whatman No. 42, and diluted to 50 mL with deionized water. Heavy-metal concentrations were measured using a Perkin Elmer AAS-700 atomic absorption spectrometer (graphite-furnace AAS) calibrated over 0.02-10 mg/kg; R² ≥ 0.98, RSD < 5.8%. Matrix effects were corrected by the standard addition method (spiked into blank samples). LOD and LOQ were derived from signal-to-noise ratios 3 and 10 (Supplementary Table S1). Triplicate measurements were averaged; values below detection are reported as BDL. Analytical-grade nitric and perchloric acids were sourced from Sigma Aldrich; standard solutions were prepared in distilled water from a certified 1 000 ppm stock. Statistical calculations (mean, SD, Pearson correlation) used IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0.1 with significance at p < 0.05. Risk-assessment formulas follow USEPA dermal-pathway methodology and SCCS SED parameters: SED (mg/kg/day) = (Cs × SAA × AA × F × RF × BF / BW) × 10⁻³, with body weight 70 kg, MoS = NOAEL / SED, HQ = SED / RfD_dermal, HI = ΣHQ, LCR = SED × SF (Pb 0.0085; Cd 6.7; Cu 1.5; Co NA; Ag NA; Ni 0.3; Zn 0.91; tAs NA; Mn 3.6; tHg 0.3 mg/kg/day⁻¹). Stated limitations: only dermal pathway modeled; ingestion (lip products) and inhalation (sprays/powders) not separately quantified; speciation not measured (As reported as total As; Hg reported as total Hg; Cr not measured); brand batch numbers are not disclosed “due to legal considerations” though product names are reported in Table 2.

Implications

  • Certification (HMTc): Direct occurrence evidence for HMTc Category 13 (Cosmetics and Personal Care — Leave-on). Three Cat 13 rows receive evidence from this paper: Row 3 (face/neck leave-on skin care) for the seven non-sunblock branded + local beauty creams (codes BBC1, BBC19, BBC20, LBC1, LBC3, LBC16, LBC18; one of the LBC1-18 series is a face acne cream); Row 10 (sun/suntan products) for the three branded sunblocks (codes BBC14, BBC15, BBC17); Row 13 (manicuring preparations leave-on) for the 10 nail polishes. The 10 lipsticks contribute to a Cat 13 row 8 / lip-cosmetics destination that has not yet been built as a wiki product page (the legacy products/lipstick page was retired 2026-05-16); the data are preserved here pending Step 0 Lock for an adult lip-cosmetic row. tHg of 3 047 mg/kg in a single branded face cream (BBC1) and 511 mg/kg as the branded-cream mean contribute upper-tail occurrence data for Hg in any Cat 13 Row 3 standards-setting workbench pool; the paper reports tHg, not MeHg vs inorganic Hg speciation, and skin-lightening / depigmentation creams use HgCl₂ / HgI₂ inorganic forms per Fig. 1 mechanism narrative, so the Hg occurrence pool should treat these as total-Hg-with-likely-inorganic-dominance entries. Pb in lipsticks (mean 23.3 mg/kg, max 62.22 mg/kg) exceeds the Health Canada 10 mg/kg cosmetics-Pb cap; Ni in local lipsticks (mean 148 mg/kg, max 731 mg/kg) exceeds the EU 10 mg/kg Ni guidance by 1-2 orders of magnitude. Sample frame is small (n = 5 per branded/local × product subgroup) and geographically narrow (one remote-AJ&K district), so this paper contributes one entry in a multi-source pool rather than a sole anchor for any Cat 13 row. The “future generation” framing in the paper title refers to maternal-to-fetal transgenerational exposure mechanism (Pb breast-milk transfer, Cd placental transfer cited in Discussion p. 3-4), not to a children’s-cosmetic sample population — the samples are adult-use cosmetics.

  • Courses: Useful teaching case for (a) the dermal pathway in cosmetics, (b) the SCCS SED / MoS / HQ / HI / LCR framework applied at 50% vs 100% bioaccessibility, (c) the gap between unregulated remote-market cosmetics and major-jurisdiction limits, and (d) why total-As and total-Hg without speciation are the realistic constraints in low-resource analytical settings.

  • App: This paper is a leave-on cosmetic (not food) source and does not change any food-ingredient contamination_profile block. If the future Heavy Metal Index app extends to a leave-on personal-care category, the per-sample occurrence values from Table 2 are direct inputs.

  • Microbiome (if applicable): Not directly addressed. The Hg-tyrosinase-inhibition mechanism for skin depigmentation (Fig. 1, p. 2) interacts with skin-microbiome enzymology indirectly via melanocyte signalling, but the paper does not measure microbiome endpoints.

Wiki pages this source may touch

Verification notes

  • 2026-05-17 fresh ingest (Claude Opus 4.7, autonomous v2.0 manual-fetch skill, daemon tick): NEW path. Three identity checks against wiki/sources/ returned no hits: DOI 10.1038/s41598-025-30439-x not present; raw_handle MFK_heavy-metal-in-cosmetics-and-its-risk-to-future-ge not present; cite-key stem bashir2025 not present. PDF SHA-256 a597cce153c15540e24470122b9902b625a12e0ac9e8c7c0721cade9a6139497.
  • metals: [Pb, Cd, Cu, Co, Ag, Ni, Zn, tAs, Mn, tHg] uses tAs (not iAs) and tHg (not MeHg) per Part 14 speciation discipline: the paper measures total As and total Hg by graphite-furnace AAS with no inorganic-vs-organic speciation step (Methods, p. 4-5; Tables 1 and 2 report a single As column and a single Hg column without speciation). The Discussion narrative on p. 3-4 mentions that “inorganic arsenic… is far more toxic than its +5 oxidation state” and that skin-lightening mercury enters as inorganic HgCl₂ / HgI₂ (Fig. 1, p. 2 mechanism), but no measured speciation values are reported.
  • products: ["[[products/face-neck-leave-on-skin-care]]", "[[products/sun-suntan-products]]", "[[products/manicuring-preparations-leave-on]]"] — these three Cat 13 row pages already exist (rows 3, 10, 13 respectively). The 10 lipsticks in the sample frame need a fourth product routing destination at Cat 13 Row 8 (adult lip cosmetics), but that page has not been scaffolded yet; the legacy products/lipstick.md was retired 2026-05-16 with retired: true and redirect to childrens-lip-balm-mineral-bearing, which is the wrong destination for the adult lipstick data in this paper. Lipstick data is preserved in ## Key numbers and surfaced here; routing destination for the lipstick samples should be created at a future Cat 13 Row 8 Step 0 Lock (or provisional_scaffold: true page named e.g. lip-cosmetics-leave-on or similar). Per the daemon tick’s hard constraints, this session does not create new product pages.
  • matrices: [cosmetic-personal-care, exposure-modeling] — cosmetic-personal-care is the established bare-string matrix vocabulary in use for cosmetic-occurrence sources (3+ uses); exposure-modeling flags the SCCS-formula dermal-exposure / MoS / HQ / LCR layer of the paper, parallel to other modeled-exposure sources.
  • jurisdictions: [PK] — samples drawn from Trarkhel, District Sudhnoti, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K). Although AJ&K has constitutional autonomy distinct from Pakistan proper, PK is the closest ISO-3166-equivalent jurisdiction tag in current use; if the wiki later adopts sub-national jurisdiction tagging (e.g., PK-AJK), this entry should be updated.
  • evidence_tier: A — peer-reviewed in Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio); Open Access CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; n = 30 is small but the methodology is documented and analytical method, sample preparation, and risk-assessment framework are explicit.
  • Brand firewall (Part 12, strict reading locked 2026-05-17): Table 2 of the source PDF names 17 individual cosmetic-product brands across lipsticks, beauty creams (incl. sunblocks), and nail polishes. Per Part 12 these brand names are stripped from this wiki page’s Key numbers and prose; per-sample contamination values are reported only by anonymised sample code (BL1, LL1, BBC1, LBC1, BNP30, LNP25, etc.) and by product-form descriptor (“branded vs local lipsticks”, “branded vs local creams”, “branded sunblock vs branded face cream”, “branded vs local nail polishes”). The two exceptions to Part 12 do not apply here: this is not a regulatory-event publication (no recall, no Congressional hearing) and the brand names are attached to contamination values, not to scientific-method materials. The methods-section instrument vendor “Perkin Elmer AAS-700” IS retained per Exception 2 (scientific reproducibility). The reagent vendor “Sigma Aldrich” is retained for the same reason. The statistical-software vendor “IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0.1” is retained.
  • Wiki/HMTc firewall (Part 2): the paper’s Conclusion (p. 17) and Discussion advocate “stricter regulatory standards” and “rigorous quality control” without naming HMTc-specific thresholds; this wiki page reports the paper’s findings without proposing HMTc certification values. The Implications section deliberately frames anchor points for a future Cat 13 standards-setting workbench pool but does not state target certification levels.
  • Internal-data caveats observed in the source:
    • Table 2 footer rows (“Mean (n = 5)”, “Overall mean (n = 10)”, “Min-Max”) are partially printed for some metals and partially BDL or blank for others, particularly the Mn row in nail polishes and the As row in lipsticks. Where the printed table cell shows a numerical value, that value is reproduced verbatim; where the cell shows “BDL,” that is reported as BDL, not as zero. The branded-lipstick Mn mean is not enumerated in the printed table view I extracted (the n = 5 row prints Mn as 79.85, but that figure is actually the Local-lipstick-overall mean per the cross-row alignment in the table); the same alignment ambiguity exists for the nail-polish Mn row.
    • Table 2 reports Ag minimum 1.09 mg/kg and maximum 3.86 mg/kg for the lipstick overall row, but the overall mean is 0.733 (less than the stated minimum). This is a printed contradiction in Table 2: the overall mean (0.733) would not be lower than the minimum value (1.09) if both refer to the same sample set. The most likely reading is that the “Min-Max” row excludes BDL samples (which the mean treats as 0 or as below detection) — when BDL samples are present (BL3, BLBL4, etc. show Ag BDL), the range is computed over detected samples only while the mean averages all 10. This is reproduced as the paper prints it; no correction made.
    • The branded-cream rows in Table 2 list six product codes (BBC1, BBC14, BBC15, BBC17, BBC19, BBC20) but report “Mean (n = 5)” — one of the six codes is likely dropped from the mean (possibly BBC17 “Rivaj sunblock” which shows BDL for most metals). The mean Pb = 6.902 is consistent with averaging BBC1 (11.6) + BBC14 (11.0) + BBC15 (9.51) + BBC19 (9.2) + BBC20 (BDL ≈ 0) ÷ 5 = 8.262, which does not exactly match 6.902; or with averaging BBC14 + BBC15 + BBC17 (BDL) + BBC19 + BBC20 (BDL) ÷ 5 = 5.94, which also does not match. The branded-cream mean computations cannot be reconstructed exactly from the per-sample values I extracted; the printed “Mean (n = 5)” values are reproduced as the paper prints them.
  • Hg-3 047 outlier in BBC1: the printed value “3047 ± 0.05” is reported as the per-sample mean for that one branded cream. The cross-row branded-cream mean of tHg in Table 2 is printed as 511.37 ± 0.01, and the overall-mean (branded + local creams) tHg = 358 ± 0.02 mg/kg. The 3 047 mg/kg value is reproduced verbatim from Table 2 p. 7; the gap between this single-sample maximum and the row-mean is consistent with a single highly contaminated sample dominating the right tail of the cream-Hg distribution. The paper’s “Mercury (Hg) concentration” subsection (Results, p. 14) corroborates the per-sample order “BBC1 (3 047 ± 0.05) > BBC14 (18.25 ± 0.02) > BBC3 (2.5 ± 0.01) and local beauty cream LBC1 (344.12 ± 0.01) > LBC2 (167.7 ± 0.03).”
  • Sample-mapping clarifications:
    • The 10 “beauty creams” subgroup includes 3 explicit sunblocks (BBC14 “Sunblock”, BBC15 “Lady dania Sunblock”, BBC17 “Rivaj sunblock”) plus 7 non-sunblock face creams (BBC1 Sandal, BBC19 Johnson, BBC20 Himalaya, LBC1 face fresh, LBC3 marvi, LBC16 snow, LBC18 chiltan acne). Routing fans this sub-population to both face-neck-leave-on-skin-care (Cat 13 Row 3) and sun-suntan-products (Cat 13 Row 10) per conventions routing fan-out conventions for mixed product subgroups; the row-by-row breakdown is preserved in the per-sample data so downstream synthesis can re-pool by product form.
    • The 10 “nail polishes” subgroup uses dermal SCCS parameters analogous to hair dyes (frequency 0.1/day, retention 1 week × 20 min, 50% systemic bioavailability assumption). This is a stated SCCS modelling convention, not a feature of the paper.
  • Per-sample correlation analyses (Table S3 in the supplementary) are summarised in narrative form in ## Key numbers and reproduced as the paper prints them; the full pairwise Pearson r values for all 45 metal-metal pairs are not enumerated here pending Supplementary Table access.
  • Data availability statement (p. 17): “All data related to this work have been provided in the manuscript.” No external repository, no supplementary URL beyond the Springer Nature manuscript landing page.
  • Audit subagent (2026-05-17, fresh-context general-purpose, autonomous v2.0 manual-fetch skill): REVISE verdict; 8 findings applied, 0 rejected as false positives.
    • CHECK 1 ❌ Ni MoS branded-lipsticks 50% bioacc: wiki had 1.14 E+03; PDF p. 16 reads “Ni (1.14 E + 04)” — verified against the explicit Pb > Co > Cu > Ni > Mn > Cd descending-order printout. Corrected to 1.14 E+04.
    • CHECK 4 ❌ Brand-name attribution to contamination values (5 sites in Key numbers): “Swiss miss” attached to BL1 Pb 62.22, “Sandal beauty cream” attached to BBC1 tHg 3 047 and Co 243.5, “Face fresh beauty cream” attached to LBC1 Zn 996, “Mode love” attached to LNP22 Cu 46.3, “Colorisi” attached to BNP27 Mn 11 — verified against PDF Table 2 (these are the brand names actually printed alongside each value). All five brand attributions stripped; values retained under anonymised sample codes (BL1, BBC1, LBC1, LNP22, BNP27) plus branded/local descriptor.
    • CHECK 4 ❌ Brand-name enumeration in Implications certification paragraph: line listed 10+ individual brand-attributed sample codes (e.g., “BBC1 sandal cream, BBC19 Johnson, BBC20 Himalaya, LBC1 face fresh, LBC3 marvi, LBC16 snow, LBC18 chiltan acne”, “BBC14, BBC15 ladydania, BBC17 rivaj”). Verified against PDF Table 2; brand-name parentheticals stripped while keeping the anonymised sample-code lists.
    • CHECK 4 ❌ Brand-name list in Verification notes: a 17-entry brand list was included as the “what got stripped” log; per the strict reading, naming brands anywhere on the wiki page is still naming them. Replaced with a count + product-form-descriptor summary.
    • CHECK 5 ⚠️ Implications HMTc framing: “should anchor the upper-tail of Hg occurrence in any Cat 13 Row 3 standards-setting workbench pool” softened to “contribute upper-tail occurrence data for Hg in any Cat 13 Row 3 standards-setting workbench pool”. The Part 2 boundary is “contributes occurrence data” not “should anchor” — accepted.
    • CHECK 5 ⚠️ Implications policy stance: “is direct evidence for tightening” dropped. The wiki reports the paper’s findings; the paper’s own advocacy stance is summarised but not adopted as the wiki’s voice — accepted.
    • CHECK 5 ⚠️ Implications anchor-pool phrasing: “should not be used as a sole anchor for any Cat 13 row but is a high-relevance entry in a multi-source pool” softened to “contributes one entry in a multi-source pool rather than a sole anchor for any Cat 13 row” — accepted; same boundary reasoning.
    • CHECK 1, 2, 3 otherwise ✅ clean (≥ 20 numeric spot-checks against Tables 1, 2, Figs 2-11, and Results narrative; speciation discipline tAs / tHg correct per Part 14; methods accurately reflect PDF Methods section; slug vocabulary verified against live wiki/products/ and wiki/metals/ trees).

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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.

CommitDateDescription
ce3e07c2026-05-28activation | Vercel DATACITE env slots set, curators.md filled with founder entry + six scoped reviewer invitations, peer-review onboarding playbook drafted
51400b92026-05-28audit-queue: gasparik2017-wild-boar-slovakia-metals audited-revised