Some of the chemical ingredients in PCPs (personal care products) could harm the environment and human health. The frequency of use and the amount of product used are important knowledge to perform exposure assessments. Some of the chemicals in PCPs are suspected to act as hormone disruptors and young people are therefor of special concern. The aim of this study was to assess the use of PCPs, both frequency and quantity, with a focus on young people in Sweden.
In total 43 persons, 23 female and 20 male in an age range of 10 to 59 years, filled out a questionnaire including questions about user frequency. Of the participants, 32 agreed to weight their PCPs with an interval of 4 weeks in order to assess the total amount used per day.
The products with the highest percent of daily use were liquid hand soap, facial cream, perfume and lip balm. Liquid hand soap was used daily by 90% of male users and 91,3% of female users.
Compared to men, the female users had a higher usage percent for all products except two; shower gel and sun cream. The three products that were used in highest quantity during the test period was body wash (3,29 g/day), liquid hand soap (5,67 g/day) and body lotion (2,02 g/day). Females tend to have a greater percent of daily use regarding body lotion, creams, facial wash, makeup and perfume compared to males. Men have a higher percent of daily usage of hairstyling products where 20% of the male users have a daily use while female daily users are 13%.
The results show that all makeup products are used by more than 60% of the female responders and 95,7% of the female respondents uses mascara. Mascara has the highest percent of daily use by females while eyeshadow is used by highest percent of female users in 1-3 times/week. Eyeshadow was used in a greater amount in grams (0,09 g/day) than mascara (0,07 g/day) even though eyeshadow was used less frequency.
Female users tend to use more products than male users and could therefore be of greater interest regarding user habits and amount of products used in risk assessments. The information is also useful to assess the flow of elements in urban wastewater.