Levers to decrease exposure to harmful chemicals: the case of Personal Care Products and cosmetics

Many chemicals used in personal care products (PCPs) have suspected health effects. Thus, PCP use may be an important modifiable source of chemical exposures. We conducted a five-day intervention during which women (N = 103, ages 18–30) in Grenoble, France, were asked to refrain from using their usual PCPs and were provided with alternative products free from the chemicals of interest. These included eleven phenols, sixteen phthalates, and two glycol ethers. Participants collected a sample of each urinary event for 24-hour periods before and on the last day of the intervention, from which chemical metabolites were assessed. Mixed regression models compared concentrations during the pre-intervention and intervention phases. A Health Impact Assessment (HIA) evaluated intervention’s impacts on child health, if applied to French pregnant women. A daily median of 12 PCPs were used pre-intervention and 7 in the intervention phase. Compared to the pre-intervention phase, medians of phenoxyacetic acid (−64% [−72; −54]), bisphenol A (−39% [−53; −20]), methylparaben (−30% [−44; −13]), and monoethyl phthalate (−22% [−33; −7.8]) decreased during the intervention phase, while propylparaben was less often detected. The HIA suggested that the bisphenol A pregnancy concentration reduction could prevent 4.0% of asthma (95% CI: 0.4%, 10.2%) and 4.4% (95% CI: 0.4%, 10.8%) of wheezing cases and avoid a 0.44 (95% CI: 1.31, −0.42) IQ point loss in offsprings. PCPs are a modifiable source of harmful chemicals such as bisphenol A and parabens, and reducing/replacing PCPs lowered urinary concentrations of harmful chemicals in just five days. The HIA conducted for bisphenol A suggested that such reductions may have substantial health benefits. While average decreases in urinary concentrations were substantial, several chemicals remained detected after the intervention phase. Individual changes in PCPs use can decrease exposure to these chemicals, but regulatory actions would probably be more efficient and fairer.