Determinations of Synthetic Musks in Personal Care Products by Solid-Phase Microextraction

Synthetic musk is widely used as fragrances in many personal care products for enhancing scent and covering odor in recent years. Hence, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) classified polycyclic musk as one of the High Production Volume (HPV) chemicals. Synthetic musk is found to be related with several health concerns such as photo-allergic reactions and neurotoxicity. From in vivo and in vitro studies, there are evidences that some synthetic musks are considered as the potential endocrine disruptors. Concerning the possible heath effect and the fact that synthetic musk is commonly detected in the environment and human samples, the information for the distributions of synthetic musks in various personal care products should be acquired. Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) is an ideal tool by combining sampling, extraction, concentration and injection into a single process. However, to the best of our knowledge, studies are still limited regarding the analysis of synthetic musk in personal care products by SPME. As a result, SPME procedures need to be validated first before the determinations of synthetic musks in personal care products can be performed. 12 synthetic musk mixtures were analyzed by solid phase microextraction method (SPME) in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The samples were first diluted by water before the extraction. The optimum extraction was performed at 70°C for 40 minutes with 300 rpm. The 65μm PDMS/DVB fiber was exposed to the headspace over the samples. A little carry-over effects was observed from the thermal desorption of the sample. The sensitivities of the method for different compounds were low enough to determine the concentrations from personal care products The linear range and method detection limits (MDL)　of polycyclic musk compounds were 0.01 to 2 ng/ml, 0.002 ng/ml respectively and the linear range for nitro musk was 0.1 to 20 ng/ml, the MDL was 0.05 ng/ml. Good linearity and precision were presented and the recoveries ranged from 91%-135%. This study provided the first data of synthetic musks level in Taiwan, more than 100 products samples in Taiwan were determined for the concentrations of both polycyclic musk and nitro musk., it was found that the high occurrence percentage and high concentration in products samples especially for compounds HHCB (15,555μg/g), AHTN (13,398μg/g), DPMI (2,013μg/g) and MK (8,324μg/g). The high level of synthetic musks were mainly found in perfumer, body lotion and hair care products categories. Daily dermal exposure was estimated, based on the mean concentrations of musks, the daily exposure of total synthetic musks through application of personal care products was 22.54μg /kg/day. The results indicates that perfume and body lotion were major sources of human exposure, which occupied 96% for HHCB. Furthermore, compared to other exposure route, it strongly suggested that dermal absorption from personal care product was expected to be the main source of human exposure. For future work, further researches are acquired to obtain the data regarding the absorption rate, toxicity and concentration of synthetic musks in different environmental matric to assess health risk.