Targeted and Suspect Screening of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Cosmetics and Personal Care Products

Abstract

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are anthropogenic chemicals reported in cosmetics and personal care products as ingredients, possible impurities in the raw material manufacturing process, or degradation products. The purpose of this study was to further delineate contributions of these varying PFAS sources to these products. Thirty-eight cosmetics and personal care products were selected and analyzed for polyfluoroalkyl phosphates (PAPs), perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs), fluorotelomer sulfonic acids (FTSAs), and perfluoroalkyl sulfonic acids (PFSAs) using targeted liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS). A subset of products was also subjected to suspect screening using LC–high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) for >200 compounds. Results of LC–MS/MS and LC–HRMS indicated a predominant and ubiquitous presence of PAPs (detection frequency 99.7%, mean and median ΣPAPs 1 080 000 and 299 ng/g). Total median PFCA and PFSA concentrations were 3 and 38 times lower, respectively. There were significant correlations (Spearman’s correlation coefficients = 0.60–0.81, p < 0.05) between 6:2 PAPs and their biotransformation products. Low levels of other PFAS classes were detected, including those previously measured in wastewater and human blood (e.g., hydrido-PFCAs), and five compounds associated with aqueous film-forming foams. Overall, these data highlight that cosmetics and personal care products can contain a breadth of PFAS at extremely high levels, leading to human and environmental exposure.

Determinants of maternal and neonatal PFAS concentrations: a review

“…Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly referred to as PFAS, are highly stable chemicals that are ubiquitous in the population due to their wide use in products such as non-stick cookware, carpeting, apparel, upholstery, personal care products and cosmetics, and firefighting foams [ 1 – 4 ]. There are thousands of PFAS that have been identified and some are persistent in the environment, bioaccumulate in humans and animals, and have been widely detected in humans [ 1 , 5 , 6 ].…”

Determination of polyfluoroalkyl substances in cosmetic products using dispersed liquid–liquid extraction coupled with UHPLC-MS/MS

“…This variation in PFAS levels is attributed to the randomly selected samples used in this study, as opposed to the samples containing fluoride-containing cosmetics that were specifically tested by Fujii et al Similar to the results of cosmetics tested in the US market, medium-chain (7 ≤ chain length ≤ 10) PFASs were detected with the highest frequency, especially PFOA , 13 which is different from cosmetics sold in Canada. 35…”

“…The method utilizes two distinct extraction techniques, namely saturated-sodium-chloride-acetonitrile or tetrahydrofuran-saturated-sodium-chloride-acetonitrile, to analyze different types of cosmetic matrices, which enables signicant reduction in the use of organic solvents compared to previously reported literature. 25,35 Moreover, the utilization of a potassium ferricyanide-zinc acetate co-precipitant for pre-SPE enhances the efficiency of solid-phase extraction (SPE).…”

Assessing the performance of a targeted absolute quantification isotope dilution liquid chromatograhy tandem mass spectrometry assay versus a commercial nontargeted relative quantification assay for detection of three major perfluoroalkyls in human blood

“…Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), consisting of perfluorosulfonates and perfluorocarboxylates, have been manufactured and employed as surfactants and surface protectors in various commercial and industrial products such as textiles, paper packaging, aqueous film-forming foams, mining and oil well surfactants, alkaline cleaners, and cosmetics, since their initial commercialization in the 1940s. 1,2 The widespread environmental contamination of PFAS has driven extensive research in the context of exposure assessment and environmental health epidemiology. [3][4][5] The research field has also expanded due to advancements in analytical technologies, particularly within the context of ultrahigh pressure liquid chromatography hyphenated with electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS).…”

“…Recent advances in analytical techniques and computational methods have provided the opportunity to perform nontargeted highresolution mass spectrometry semiquantitative analysis of endogenous metabolites and exogenous exposures simultaneously within a domain known as the exposome. 2,7,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Such nontargeted exposome assays for the most part have provided relative concentrations with arbitrary units and are considered less informative because they are contextual and relevant only to the study at hand and therefore difficult to extend to other studies for comparing exposure levels, temporal trend monitoring, and meta-analyses. 16 Nontargeted analysis of PFAS where relative concentrations are obtained is rapidly emerging and is claimed to provide comparable results to that of isotope dilution UHPLC-MS/MS.…”