A Study of Microbiological Contamination in Cosmetics and Toiletries in Iraq. Contamination of Talcum Powder and Body Lotion

Abstract

One hundred items of 60 talcum powders and 40 body lotions wereexamined for their total aerobic bacterial, coliform and fungal counts. We alsocarried out anaerobic bacterial counts for talcum powder as well as tests todetect some potentially hazardous bacteria in all tested samples. Talcumpowders were more heavily contaminated with bacteria than body lotions. Morethan 60% of the tested body lotions contained no viable bacteria or less than 100C.F.U./gm, while 35% of the talcum powders contained this level. Five perpercent of the talcum powder were contaminated with 104 C.F.U. /gm and noneof the body lotions were contaminated to that extent. No coliforms wererecovered from any of the body lotions, while 3.3% of the talcum powderexamined contained coliforms in the range of 250-300 C.F.U/gm.Staphylococcus Spp. were detected in one sample of both talcum powders andbody lotions. Two samples of talcum powder contained E. coli. Neither talcumpowder nor body lotions showed fungal counts. Also no talcum powder showedthe presence of anaerobic bacterial counts.Keyword: microbial contamination, cosmetics, talcum powder, body lotion.