The purity of tattoo inks, screening substances of high concern.

BACKGROUND: Tattoos have grown in popularity in recent years with over 60 million Europeans having a tattoo nowadays. Currently, there is no harmonized legislation in Europe but from 2022 on, tattoo inks will be regulated through a REACH Amendment implementing compound-specific restrictions. METHODOLOGY: A screening method based on LC-QqQ-MS was developed and validated for screening 40 substances of high concern in tattoo inks. An additional quantification method was validated to quantify 5-nitro toluidine and 4-chloroaniline in tattoo inks with high accuracy. The method was validated according to the total error approach with an acceptance value of ±20% RESULTS: The methodology was applied to 86 samples of which 26 are violating the current Resolution ResAP (2008). 5-nitro toluidine was found in 16 samples, all of them having an unacceptable health risk, with an average concentration of 29 µg/g basic violet 10, basic red 1, 4-chloroaniline, and basic red 9 were detected 8, 7, 4, and 3, times respectively. Counterfeit products with lower quality were observed. CONCLUSION: Our results show that low-quality tattoo inks are easily available to the European consumer. In line with literature, most infringements were observed with red/brown inks which is not surprising since these colors are most often associated with adverse health effects.

Consumer protection provided by the European medical device and cosmetic legislation for condoms and lubricants.

Personal lubricants and lubricants used in condoms contain a number of ingredients which are also present in cosmetic products. These have to comply to the medical device regulation (745/2017) which should provide the same level of consumer protection, if not more, as foreseen in the legal framework of cosmetics (1223/2009). In the current study we developed an analytical method capable of identifying and quantifying 15 ingredients, commonly found in lubricants and cosmetics. Based upon their most important toxicological endpoint, the substances involved were grouped in three toxicological classes provoking either irritation, contact allergic dermatitis or systemic toxicity. The method was applied on 30 condoms and 54 personal lubricants present on the EU market. Their safety was assessed using the same reasoning as commonly applied for cosmetic ingredients. Higher mucosae susceptibility, the main exposed area for lubricants, was taken into account in this assessment. The results show that the majority of the products studied are safe. Nevertheless, for some products the safety could not be confirmed. The results also highlight the fact that there is no consensus for a number of ingredients, used as well in cosmetics as in medical devices. Alignment between both legislations would improve the safety of these products and further raise the general level of consumer protection.

A strategy based on fingerprinting and chemometrics for the detection of regulated plants in plant food supplements from the Belgian market: Two case studies.

The sale and consumption of plant food supplements is increasing, especially in the western world. A lot of these supplements can be bought through internet, where a lot of illegal trade is going on. Every year seized dietary supplements are send to laboratories in order to screen for the presence of chemical adulterants or illegally added active pharmaceutical ingredients, though also herbal adulteration occurs and is given less attention. In this paper a two-step approach is presented based on fingerprints recorded by both infrared spectroscopy as liquid chromatography with UV-detection for the screening of five regulated plants used in respectively dietary supplements for slimming and potency enhancement. Both types of fingerprints are combined with chemometric techniques in order to obtain classification models. A first classification model is calculated based on the infrared data and gives a first idea about the plant suspected to be present. This suspicion is then confirmed based on binary classification models calculated with the chromatographic data obtained for the suspected plant. In general, good classification models were obtained for each of the targeted plants. The approach was applied in a small market study comprising 35 dietary supplements for slimming and 34 for male potency enhancement. In total 21 samples were found to contain one of the five targeted plants.