Characterization of asbestos exposures associated with the use of facial makeups

There has been renewed interest in the safety of cosmetics that may contain asbestos or other elongate mineral particles at very low levels as a naturally occurring contaminant. The authors evaluated asbestos exposure during the application of facial makeups in a constructed chamber simulating a bathroom space. The facial makeups tested included products previously found to have very low or “trace” asbestos content by governmental and commercial laboratories using a variety of bulk analysis methods. Tremolite asbestos was detected in five of 54 personal air samples and three of 72 area air samples in 18 simulations. The calculated geometric mean and 95th percentile task‐based asbestos concentration associated with personal facial makeup use in this study, incorporating censored data, is 0.0015 and 0.0018 fiber per cubic centimeter (f/cc), respectively, with a corresponding 95th percentile 24‐h time‐weighted average (TWA) asbestos concentration of 0.00008 f/cc for three applications per day in a simulated bathroom with no active ventilation. Based on these results, cumulative non‐occupational asbestos exposures confer a less than one in 1,000,000 risk of asbestos‐related disease based on many typical usage patterns and less than 1/100,000 risk with upper‐end lifetime usage patterns, using the US Environmental Protection Agency asbestos risk model.