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Lightening skin tone is an ancient and well-documented practice, and remains common practice among many cultures. Whitening agents such as corticosteroids, tretinoin and hydroquinone are medically applied to effectively lighten the skin tone of hyperpigmented lesions. However, when these agents are used cosmetically, they are associated with a variety of side-effect. Alternative agents, such as arbutin and its derivatives kojic acid and nicotinamide have been subsequently developed for cosmetic purposes. Unfortunately, some cosmetics contain whitening agents that are banned for use in cosmetic products. This article provides an overview of the mode of action and potential side-effects of cosmetic legal and illegal whitening agents, and the pattern of use of these types of products. Finally, an EU analysis of the health problems due to the presence of illegal products on the market is summarized., (© 2016 European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.)

In Europe, hydroquinone is a forbidden cosmetic ingredient. It is, however, still abundantly used because of its effective skin-whitening properties. The question arises as to whether the quantities of hydroquinone used become systemically available and may cause damage to human health. Dermal absorption studies can provide this information. In the EU, dermal absorption has to be assessed in vitro since the Cosmetic Regulation 1223/2009/EC forbids the use of animals. To obtain human-relevant data, a Franz diffusion cell protocol was validated using human skin. The results obtained were comparable to those from a multicentre validation study. The protocol was applied to hydroquinone and the dermal absorption ranged between 31 and 44%, which is within the range of published in vivo human values. This shows that a well-validated in vitro dermal absorption study using human skin provides relevant human data. The validated protocol was used to determine the dermal absorption of illegal skin-whitening cosmetics containing hydroquinone. All samples gave high dermal absorption values, rendering them all unsafe for human health. These results add to our knowledge of illegal cosmetics on the EU market, namely that they exhibit a negative toxicological profile and are likely to induce health problems., (© 2017 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

An important group of suspected illegal cosmetics consists of skin bleaching products, which are usually applied to the skin of the face, hands and décolleté for local depigmentation of hyper pigmented regions or more importantly, for a generalized reduction of the skin tone. These cosmetic products are suspected to contain illegal active substances that may provoke as well local as systemic toxic effects, being the reason for their banning from the EU market. In that respect, illegal and restricted substances in cosmetics, known to have bleaching properties, are in particular hydroquinone, tretinoin and corticosteroids. From a legislative point of view, all cosmetic products containing a prohibited whitening agent are illegal and must be taken off the EU market. A newly developed screening method using ultra high performance liquid chromatography-time off flight-mass spectrometry allows routine analysis of suspected products. 163 suspected skin whitening cosmetics, collected by Belgian inspectors at high risk sites such as airports and so-called ethnic cosmetic shops, were analyzed and 59% were classified as illegal. The whitening agents mostly detected were clobetasol propionate and hydroquinone, which represent a serious health risk when repeatedly and abundantly applied to the skin., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

During the last years, the EU market is flooded by illegal cosmetics via the Internet and a so-called "black market". Among these, skin-bleaching products represent an important group. They contain, according to the current European cosmetic legislation (Directive 76/768/EEC), a number of illegal active substances including hydroquinone, tretinoin and corticosteroids. These may provoke as well local as systemic toxic effects, being the reason for their banning from the EU market. To control this market there is a need for a fast screening method capable of detecting illegal ingredients in the wide variety of existing bleaching cosmetic formulations. In this paper the development and validation of an ultra high pressure liquid chromatographic (UHPLC) method is described. The proposed method makes use of a Waters Acquity BEH shield RP18 column with a gradient using 25 mM ammonium borate buffer (pH 10) and acetonitrile. This method is not only able to detect the major illegal (hydroquinone, tretinoin and six dermatologic active corticosteroids) and legal whitening agents, the latter having restrictions with respect to concentration and application (kojic acid, arbutin, nicotinamide and salicylic acid), but can also quantify these in a run time of 12 min. The method was successfully validated using the "total error" approach in accordance with the validation requirements of ISO-17025. During the validation a variety of cosmetic matrices including creams, lotions and soaps were taken into consideration., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)