Determination of chromium and nickel in commercial foam bath products by ETA-AAS.

The presence of some inorganic elements, such as Ni and Cr in cosmetic products could be responsible for some skin diseases, such as allergic dermatitis. This paper deals with the determination of these two elements in commercial samples of foam bath products by means of the ETA-AAS technique. Four different analytical procedures for sample digestion are evaluated and discussed. Results indicated that the high-pressure microwave digestion is the best procedure for treatment of the complex matrices considered in the study. Chromium values were in the range of 22-199 micrograms/kg, whereas those of nickel fell within the range 26-287 micrograms/kg. The detection limit (3 sigma) of the whole procedure was 3 micrograms/kg for Cr and 15 micrograms/kg for Ni. The analytical data demonstrated that both Ni and Cr were present in all the samples at very low concentrations, and that foam bath products are a relatively minor source of exposure to these elements.