Determination of Heavy Metals in Sanitary Products of Women

Overview

Shin, Lee, and Chung measured chromium, cobalt, nickel, copper, cadmium, and lead in women’s sanitary napkins and tampons from five manufacturing countries. The study reports both total product content in ppm and extractable metal concentrations in artificial acidic sweat in ppb. The paper uses country/sample codes rather than brand-level reporting, so no brand names are attached to contamination values.

Key numbers

• Sample frame: the Materials section lists 13 sanitary napkins (Korea 3, Japan 2, United States 3, Germany 3, China 2) and 5 tampons (Korea 1, Japan 2, United States 2). The Conclusion says 23 feminine hygiene products, but Tables 1, 2, 4, and 5 enumerate 18 products.
• Sanitary napkin total content in Table 1, ppm: chromium was detected in all samples from 0.106 to 0.530; copper in all samples from 0.095 to 4.901; lead ranged from N.D to 0.308; nickel ranged from N.D to 0.890; cobalt ranged from N.D to 0.794; cadmium was detected only in C1 (0.020) and C2 (0.023).
• Sanitary napkin extractable metals in Table 2, ppb: chromium 0.532-29.286, cobalt N.D-1.319, nickel 2.939-14.738, copper 3.059-51.866, cadmium N.D-1.350, and lead N.D-5.022.
• Tampon total content in Table 4, ppm: chromium N.D-0.120, cobalt N.D-0.046, nickel 0.056-0.094, copper 0.288-3.509, cadmium N.D-0.032, and lead 0.083-0.872.
• Tampon extractable metals in Table 5, ppb: chromium 1.179-3.945, cobalt N.D-0.468, nickel 1.573-7.073, copper 2.639-9.337, cadmium N.D-0.174, and lead N.D-0.607.
• The authors state that extractable heavy-metal concentrations in sanitary products did not exceed the criteria of Oeko-Tex Standard 100 as presented in their Table 3.

Methods (brief)

For extractable-metal testing, 0.5 g of each product material was extracted in 10 ml artificial acidic sweat solution at 37oC for 24 hours on a magnetic stirrer; the final solution volume was made up to 10 ml. The artificial sweat solution contained 0.5g L-histidine monohydrochloride, 5.0g NaCl, and 2.2g disodium hydrogen orthophosphate, adjusted to pH 5.5 with 0.1M NaOH. Total-content testing used conventional hot-plate acid digestion. Metals were analyzed by ICP-MS (Elan 6100 DRC, Perkin Elmer), and values were expressed as means of three measurements.

Related evidence

• Menstrual pads (disposable, panty liners, intralabial pads, reusable menstrual pads)
• Menstrual tampons (scented/unscented; applicator tested as distinct component)

Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git.