570 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS Table IIl. Distribution of aerobic colony counts on PCA incubated for 2 days at 37 ø C No. of Product items No. and (yo) of items with colony counts g-• within the range 300 300-1000 1001-10 000 10 000 Powders Talcum powder 12 12(100) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) Face powder and rouge 14 12 (86) 0 (0) 2 (14) 0 (0) Complete make-up 11 8 (73) 1 (9) I (9) I (9) Creams and lotions Hand and body lotion 21 20 (95) 0 (0) I (5) 0 (0) Face cream 17 16 (94) 0 (0) 0 (0) 1 (6) Skin perfume 6 5 (83) 1 (17) 0 (0) 0 (0) Hair cream and dressing 16 14 (87) 1 (6) 1 (6) 0 (0) Shaving cream and foam 6 5 (83) 0 (0) 0 (0) 1 (17) Eye make-up Mascara, eyeliner and eye shadow 20 13 (65) 4 (20) 2 (10) 1 (5) Soaps and detergents Bath oil and detergent 18 17 (94) 0 (0) 1 (6) 0 (0) Shampoo and hair colourant 13 12 (92) 0 (0) 1 (8) 0 (0) Soap 6 6(100) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) Miscellaneous Toothpaste 6 5 (83) 0 (0) I (17) 0 (0) Lipstick* 6 6(100) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) Total 172 151 (88) 7 (4) 10 (6) 4 (2) * cfu/lipstick surface, not per g. Table IV. Distribution of colony counts of clostridia from powders on RCA incubated for 3 days at 37øC No. of Product items No. and (yo) of items with colony counts g-• within the range 10 10-300 300 Talcum powder 12 8 (67) 4 (33) 0 (0) Face powder and rouge 14 9 (65) 5 (35) 0 (0) Complete make-up 11 11 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) Total 37 28 (75.6) 9 (24.4) 0 (0)

MICROBIAL CONTAMINATION OF COSMETICS AND TOILETRIES 571 Table V. Distribution of colony counts for yeasts and moulds on SDA at 25øC No. of Product items No. and (%) of items with colony counts g-• within the range 300 300-1000 1000 Powders Talcum powder 12 12 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) Face powder and rouge 14 12 (86) I (7) 1 (7) Completemake-up 11 10 (91) 1 (9) 0 (0) Creams and lotions Hand and body lotion 21 21 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) Face cream 17 17 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) Skin perfume 6 6 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) Hair cream and dressing 16 15 (94) 1 (6) 0 (0) Shaving cream and foam 6 5 (83) 0 (0) 1 (17) Eye make-up Mascara, eye liner and eye shadow 20 19 (95) 0 (0) 1 (5) Soaps and detergents Bath oil and detergent 18 15 (83) 1 (6) 2 (11) Shampoo and hair colourant 13 13 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) Soap 6 6(100) 0 (0) 0 (0) Miscellaneous Toothpaste 6 5 (83) 1 (17) 0 (0) Lipstick* 6 6 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) Total 172 162 (94) 5 (3) 5 (3) * cfu/lipstick surface, not per g. Further analyses of selected items Of the products examined during the survey, seven were selected for further investigation on the basis of the levels of contamination observed. Several units of each product were purchased locally from a number of different retail outlets. They were examined essentially as described above except that aerobic bacterial counts were made at 25øC rather than at 30øC and in some instances comparison was made of surface and mixed samples of the items. The distribution of counts is presented in Table VI. The brand of liquid eye liner and bath detergent were selected because of the extremely high count observed previously in both items of each of these products. Further tests showed that the mean counts of the replicate items examined were also high (c. 105 cfu g-•), but that the counts from different units ranged from no viable bacteria recovered to a count in one instance of 1.2 x 10 ø at 25øC. Significantly lower counts were observed at 37øC than at 25øC for these products.