Micro-determination and assessment of selected heavy metal ions in foundation creams commonly used in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia using ICP-OES

Abstract

Twenty-five different foundation cream brands were analyzed to detect the presence of heavy metals. These brands were manufactured in several different countries (China, Japan, USA, France, and USA) and locally available in Riyadh. The foundation creams varied in color intensity and tone (light to dark). These creams were pre-Treated by microwave assisted acid-digestion prior to using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy to determine the presence of arsenic, mercury, lead and cadmium. The concentrations of these metals varied the levels of cadmium, arsenic and mercury were within permissible limits. However, lead concentrations far exceeded international limits, with creams from China showing elevated lead concentrations (upto 132.00 ppm). The concentration ranges for these metals were: 0.09-132.00 ppm for Pb, 0.01-0.33 for Cd, 0.04-0.66 for As, and 0.01-0.74 for Hg. A one-way variance analysis was performed for the different foundation cream brands with no significant differences observed within and between the groups.