Heavy Metals Concentrations in Five Brands of Lip Gloss and Mascara Cosmetics Sold and Used in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria

This study is evaluated the concentration of some toxic heavy metals present in selected cosmetics sold and used in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeriausing aFlame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS), VGP 210 (BUCK Scientific) Model. The result revealed that the average concentration of the metals in mg/L ranged thus: Cadmium (0.012- 0.046), Chromium (0.002- 0.022), Lead (0.004- 0.024) and Nickel (0.140- 0.416). The concentration of Arsenic and Mercury was not detected, and were considered string variables in this study. From the results, the concentration of the metals detected were within the permissible limit of the World Health Organization (WHO) except Cadmium that was slightly above the WHO limit in one of the samples with a value of 0.046 mg/L. These results indicate that the selected cosmetics used in Calabar contains low amounts of the heavy metals analyzed in this study and may not pose any health risk for now, except that the accumulation of such little amounts over time due to prolonged use of these cosmetics may cause harm.