The Alternatives to Animal Testing for Safety Assessment of Cosmetic Surfactants

Recently, the development of alternatives to animal testing has become one of the most important issues in the field of safety assessment of cosmetic ingredients, especially surfactants. In this review, both general concept and current status of alternatives are described. Also, the hemoglobin denaturation (HDR) test, one of the in vitro methods we developed, is explained in detail as an example. HDR test has been systemically studied from various aspects and has developed as an alternative to Draize eye irritation test. The advantages of HDR test are high reproducibility as well as an easy handling without aseptic operation. Factorial analysis on the data obtained from the in vivo test and several in vitro tests suggested a battery system, the useful combination of in vitro methods based on different mechanisms, for the purpose of predicting eye irritancy. Furthermore, quantitative structure-activity relationship for surfactants was investigated to discuss eye irritancy predicted by HDR test. In the near future, the necessity of development of in vitro methods will be increased as seen in eye irritation test.