title: Detection of whitening agents in illegal cosmetics using attenuated total reflectance-infrared spectroscopy.
abstract: Cosmetic products containing illegal whitening agents are still found on the European market. They represent a considerable risk to public health, since they are often characterised by severe side effects when used chronically. The detection of such products at customs is not always simple, due to misleading packaging and the existence of products containing only legal components. Therefore there is a need for easy to use equipment and techniques to perform an initial screening of samples. The use of attenuated total reflectance-infrared (ATR-IR) spectroscopy, combined with chemometrics, was evaluated for that purpose. It was found that the combination of ATR-IR with the simple chemometric technique k-nearest neighbours gave good results. A model was obtained in which a minimum of illegal samples was categorised as legal. The correctly classified illegal samples could be attributed to the illegal components present.
authors.affiliation: Division of Food, Medicines and Consumer Safety, Section Medicinal Products, Scientific Institute of Public Health (WIV-ISP), J. Wytmansstraat 14, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. Electronic address: Eric.Deconinck@wiv-isp.be.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Deconinck
authors.affiliation: Division of Food, Medicines and Consumer Safety, Section Medicinal Products, Scientific Institute of Public Health (WIV-ISP), J. Wytmansstraat 14, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Bothy
authors.affiliation: Division of Food, Medicines and Consumer Safety, Section Medicinal Products, Scientific Institute of Public Health (WIV-ISP), J. Wytmansstraat 14, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium; Department of Toxicology, Dermato-Cosmetology and Pharmacognosy, Center for Pharmaceutical Research (CePhar), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Laarbeeklaan 103, B-1090 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Desmedt
authors.affiliation: Division of Food, Medicines and Consumer Safety, Section Medicinal Products, Scientific Institute of Public Health (WIV-ISP), J. Wytmansstraat 14, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Courselle
authors.affiliation: Division of Food, Medicines and Consumer Safety, Section Medicinal Products, Scientific Institute of Public Health (WIV-ISP), J. Wytmansstraat 14, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: J O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: De Beer
mesh_terms: D057886:Bleaching Agents / Q000737:chemistry*; D003358:Cosmetics / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry*; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D013055:Spectrophotometry, Infrared / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D057886:Bleaching Agents; D003358:Cosmetics
keywords: ATR-IR; Chemometrics; Detection illegal compounds; Illegal cosmetics; Whitening agents