Desenvolvimento de método para determinação de metais pesados em batons

Abstract

There are reports of make-up using, mainly for eyes and lips since the Egyptian civilizations. The lipstick derived from the word stick was only developed as it is currently known in 1883. On many occasions throughout history, toxic metals such as lead and mercury have been part of the composition of several cosmetics, and for years their use has been indiscriminate. Many metals are bioaccumulative, meaning they are not easily eliminated from the human body and cause health problems that can vary in intensity and can even be lethal. Currently, there are regulatory bodies and agencies to control the use of raw materials harmful to health. Therefore, heavy metals such as lead and cadmium are not allowed or traces of these can be presented according to the legislation of each country. In Brazil, cadmium, chromium and mercury are prohibited and other metals are allowed in a controlled manner. The methodologies for the determination of metals in lipsticks use controlled acids, such as perchloric and hydrofluoric, which have a high risk of explosion and high corrosive capacity, respectively. The cosmetics market has been growing in consumption, and has shown a notable movement, since in the last 10 years it had a surplus of 3.8% in GDP, being of great economic importance. Studies that develop safer, accessible and economically viable analysis methodologies are therefore of great interest. Hence, a new methodology was developed to determine toxic metals in lipstick samples, using organic solvents to remove wax and nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide for digesting the pigmented fraction of the sample, followed by determining the amount of these metals using of reading in Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The wax removal obtained a satisfactory result of 90% of the weight, as the analyte readings were varied, even when dealing with the same sample with different solvents, and there were very high values readings and others below the detection limit, showing thus a high standard deviation value.