Assessment of Heavy Metal Concentration in Some Selected Cosmetic Products and Human Health Risk in Eleme LGA, Rivers State, Nigeria

Overview

Yorgwara and colleagues measured lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), total chromium (Cr), total arsenic (As), total mercury (Hg), and Co in 26 cosmetic and personal-care products purchased from cosmetic stores and markets in Eleme LGA, Rivers State, Nigeria. The source groups the samples as facial cosmetics, skin/body-care cosmetics, and hair-care cosmetics, then reports concentration tables plus dermal-exposure calculations. The page preserves the source’s table units and total-metal speciation, while suppressing brand and product names attached to individual contamination values.

Key numbers

• Article identity: Research Journal of Pure Science and Technology 9(2):20-37; DOI 10.56201/rjpst.vol.9.no2.2026.pg20.37; received January 3, 2026; accepted February 15, 2026; published February 28, 2026.
• Sample frame: 26 finished cosmetic/personal-care samples from Eleme LGA, divided into 10 facial cosmetics, 8 skin/body-care cosmetics, and 8 hair-care cosmetics.
• Facial cosmetics, Table 4.1 (mg/g): Pb 0.15-1.26 mg/g; Cd 0.10-0.86 mg/g; total Cr 0.48-1.22 mg/g; total As 0.28-0.68 mg/g; total Hg 0.16-1.05 mg/g; Co 0.28-1.85 mg/g. The narrative says the maximum Cd was 0.89 mg/g, but the table’s highest Cd entry is 0.86 mg/g.
• Skin/body-care cosmetics, Table 4.2 (mg/L): Pb 0.20-1.43 mg/L; Cd 0.12-0.55 mg/L; total Cr 0.69-1.11 mg/L; total As 0.28-0.93 mg/L; total Hg 0.14-0.83 mg/L; Co 0.22-2.95 mg/L. The prose sometimes describes these values as mg/g, but the table header gives mg/L.
• Hair-care cosmetics, Table 4.3 (mg/L): Pb 0.12-1.19 mg/L; Cd 0.27-0.48 mg/L; total Cr 0.56-1.78 mg/L; total As 0.15-0.88 mg/L; total Hg 0.18-1.05 mg/L; Co 0.14-3.72 mg/L. The narrative says arsenic ranged to 0.58 mg/g, but the table includes a total-As value of 0.88 mg/L.
• Chronic daily exposure, Table 4.4: maximum CDE values in the table were Pb 3.35E-09 mg/kg/d, Cd 2.01E-09 mg/kg/d, total Cr 4.17E-09 mg/kg/d, total As 6.68E-08 mg/kg/d, and total Hg 2.46E-09 mg/kg/d; Co is not included in the CDE table.
• Non-carcinogenic risk, Table 4.5: all reported metal HQ values were < 1, and total HI values ranged from 4.13E-05 to 2.31E-04 across the 26 samples. The Results prose states an HI range of 9.75E-05 to 2.31E-04, but the table contains lower HI values.
• Lifetime cancer risk, Table 4.6: Hg is listed as NIL; Pb, Cd, total Cr, total As, and Co values are all below the source’s 1 × 10-6 lower-bound risk comparator. The table’s highest Pb LCR is 3.94E-07; the prose separately says the highest cancer-risk value was 1.05E-07.
• Systemic exposure dosage, Table 4.7: skin/body-care products have the largest SED values in the table, including maxima of Pb 1875.9, Cd 1476.8, total Cr 4430.3, total As 1157.5, total Hg 1197.4, and Co 3791.7; facial cosmetics and hair-care cosmetics are generally lower in the same table.
• Margin of Safety, Table 4.8: facial lipstick rows show high MoS values for several metals, including Co values above 100, while many skin/body-care rows are in the 10^-6 to 10^-3 range. These are source-calculated risk metrics, not occurrence concentrations.
• ANOVA, Table 4.9: between-groups sum of squares 659.661, df 4, mean square 164.915; within-groups sum of squares 2791.071, df 57, mean square 48.966; F 3.368; Sig. .015.

Methods (brief)

The study collected 26 personal-care products from cosmetic stores and markets in Eleme LGA, Rivers State, Nigeria. The authors grouped them into facial cosmetics, skin/body-care cosmetics, and hair-care cosmetics; the source’s tables include eye pencils, lipsticks, eyeshadows, powders, foundation, soaps, perfumes, roll-ons, creams, hair foods, conditioners, shampoos, and hair dyes.

For digestion, the paper states that 5.0 g of each cosmetic sample was weighed into a conical flask, digested with an acid mixture described as 650ml conc HNO3: 80ml HClO4: 20ml conc H2SO4, heated to a clear solution, cooled, filtered through Whatman No. 1 filter paper, and diluted to 50 ml with distilled water. Heavy metals were determined by Agilent FS240AA atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Blanks and working standards are mentioned, but the paper does not report LOD/LOQ values, CRM recovery, spike recovery, replicate precision, or uncertainty intervals in the finished-product tables.

Speciation: Pb, Cd, Co, and total Cr are reported as elemental metals. The paper labels arsenic as As and mercury as Hg; this page treats them as total arsenic (tAs) and total mercury (tHg) because no inorganic-arsenic or methylmercury speciation is reported.

Related evidence

• Lip products (lipstick, gloss, lip liner, adult lip balm)
• Eye makeup (liners, shadows, mascara, brow products, false lash adhesives, lash/eyebrow serums)
• Makeup — foundation, powders, blush/rouge
• Body wash/shower gel
• Fragrance preparations (perfumes, colognes, body sprays)
• Deodorants (sticks, roll-ons, gels, creams, wipes, sprays)
• Body/hand leave-on skin care
• Leave-on hair preparations (leave-in conditioners, tonics/dressings, styling aids, hair sprays, color sprays)
• Conditioner (general adult, rinse-out)
• Shampoo (general adult)
• Hair dye/color rinses (rinse-off after processing)
• Lead
• Cadmium
• Chromium
• Arsenic, Total
• Mercury, Total
• Cobalt

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.