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Potential Health Risk of Microplastic Exposures from Skin-Cleansing Products
Summary
Researchers analyzed popular skin-cleansing products including liquid soap, micellar water, and cleansing oil, and found microplastics present in all of them. The particles varied in size and type, with potential exposure through skin absorption, accidental ingestion, and inhalation during use. This study identifies everyday personal care products as a source of microplastic exposure that most people would not suspect.
This research aims to investigate and quantify the possible presence of microplastics (MPs) in usual skin-cleansing products (i.e., liquid soap, micellar water, and micellar cleansing oil), the most popular from the market in terms of brand and customer confidence. Therefore, optical microscopy and micro-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (micro-FTIR) were used to determine the MPs' number, color, shape, size, and chemical composition. For the first time, the results were correlated with the possible exposure paths (i.e., inhalation, ingestion, or adsorption) to assess the human health risk of the analyzed micellar-based cleansers in terms of chronic total exposure dose to microplastics. Finally, a statistical analysis was added to this study for source prediction of MPs in skin-cleansing samples in terms of morphology, chemical composition, and other factors (i.e., brand, packaging, etc.). The various exposures and toxicities of MPs were assessed in terms of potential health risk, knowing that their toxic effect depends on the polymeric structure strongly linked with the size, shape, and concentration in the products.
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