Air pollution has been proved to be associated with skin issues. Protection from pollutants is desired by consumers and anti-pollution benefits have become a decision factor when consumers select personal care products. There are a lot of body or face cleansing products on the market with anti-pollution benefits through pollutant removal, deep cleansing, etc. Reliable in vitro methods to verify such anti-pollution benefits are demanded. The aim of this study was to develop an in vitro method to evaluate the pollutant removal efficacy of cleansing products. To mimic real-life air pollution, a tailor-made pollution chamber was designed and set up to generate pollutants with tuneable levels by using particular matter (PM) index at a level of 100-400 μg/cm3. Vitroskin as a skin surrogate was selected for exposure experiments. Heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) deposited onto Vitroskin were measured by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), respectively. The changes of heavy metals and PAHs levels on Vitroskin before and after product application by testing products are used to calculate the pollutant removal efficacy. By use of this method, selected cleansing product from the market were assessed. The results evidenced that test product could remove multiple types of pollutants (PM, heavy metals, and PAHs), and the test product was superior to water in pollutant removal efficacy. The method can be potentially used to compare pollutant removal efficacy among products.

ESDR151 - A Method for in vitro assessment of Pollutant Removal Based on a Tailor-made Pollution Chamber

50th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Dermatological Research. VIRTUAL MEETING