Cosmetic recall - (Mar/04/2012 )

Recent FDA enforcement reports include a cosmetic recall - due to Staphylococcus aureus and fungal contamination reportedly traced to pump components. Perhaps involved is the product's preservative system - an enzyme system of limited capability compared to more conventional cosmetic preservatives.

http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/EnforcementReports/ucm293085.htm

amazing.
it seems weird that you have S. aureus/fungal growth in a night cream, altough, they dont really mention growth, they are present, but dead or alive..?

usually such things only happen when people make their own "healthy" cosmetics.....

These would be viable, and staph aureus would probably indicate alot of hand operations. The product did make claims toward a "natural
formula without parabens and the preservative system was pretty wimpy. Grb is right - home-made stuff often is fouled with bug and users don;t even know it.s

no they even claim they are using more healthy stuff.....we always make our students test their homemade cosmetics if they have any - you would not belive the CFU counts.......

gebirgsziege on Mon Mar 5 18:01:19 2012 said:

In my opinion its not about how many (the count, or even how many species) its about about which species.
(not saying that you dont need to work sterile etc)

But still, I wonder whats in that cream (or whats not), making it possible that bacteria/fungi can grow in it.
(for example, as Phil Geis allready mentioned, without parabens)

Perhaps the "Nourishing" has to be taken literally...

In the US - cosmetic is "adulterated" criteira include presnce of pathogneic microbes like staph aureus if it includes an excessive level of microbes in general or if it was made, packaged, etc under filthy conditions..
It's much more common that microbiolgical contamination of cosmetics involved Gram negative bacteria - esp. pseudomonads , many of which can grow in dstilled water to 10E5 cfu / ml.
Here;s the ingredint list - as you see there's a bunch of natural stuff.- the preservative cinsists of enzym that generate small amounts of hydrogen peroxide,
Water (aqua), helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil*, vegetable glycerin (from vegetable oils), cetearyl olivate & sorbitan olivate (from olive oil), sesamum indicum (sesame) seed oil*, cocos nucifera (coconut) oil*, beeswax*, glucose, xanthan gum (natural thickener), chondrus crispus (carrageenan), tocopherol (natural vitamin E), organic soliga forest honey*, benzyl benzoate#, benzyl salicylate#, glucose oxidase, lactoperoxidase, origanum majorana (sweet marjoram) leaf oil*, olea europaea (olive) fruit oil*, vetiveria zizanoides (vetiver) root oil*, pogostemon cablin (patchouli) oil*, cinnamomum cassia (cassia) leaf oil, rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary) leaf oil*, ricinus communis (castor) seed oil*, prunus amygdalus dulcis (almond) oil*, hibiscus abelmoschuus (ambrette) extract*, camellia sinensis (tea) leaf extract*

yes, but homemade cosmetics often include milk products or plants that are added - and the temperature is often not right or people use a mixture of oil and wax which results in a perfect "nutrishing" environment for microbes.
People also tend to forget that the preservatives used in cosmetics also help to stabilise the product.

edit: you are partly right pito, but would you like to use a cream on your skin with a CFU count of 10^13 bacteria/g fresh weight? I definitly would not.

gebirgsziege on Tue Mar 6 09:17:53 2012 said:

To be honest: if those bacteria are harmless.. I wouldnt care too much. I think, in general, that people are too "clean" at the moment. There is this idea that all microbes have to be killed and everything has to be very very very sterile.
I dont believe in it.

I am not saying there should be no control at all or that we should all start making our own products filled with "germs", but we need to be realistic about it too.

The only reason (often) to make products sterile or add preservatives to cosmetic creams is to prevent "bad" bacteria to grow in it, but at the same time we kill the good ones.
So (in my opinion) its not about making sterile cream, but its about making sure there are no bad ones in it.. but the good ones.. we just get rid of them "by accident".

Altough, I think this kind of reasoning is not the case anymore, people just see it as: get rid of all the bacteria, because they are all bad...

And think about the cream with bacteria in it: why not put it on your face (taking in act they are harmless bacteria) ? Think about how many bacteria there are on your face/skin anyway?
What about those "expensive" products with bacteria added to it to put on your body/in your body to be healty..
(I know there are creams out there with bacteria added to it to make your skin better! I mean, would you then put it on your face? Anyway, its not a regular cream, I cant remember exactly what is was, but it was some kind of special cream you could buy in asia)
Or what about those "mud baths", there are some using "natural mud" , There are some filled with more bacteria then you can imagine, and people are rolling in it and loving it.


I have spoken to people that used bleach and other products to clean their house and themself because they wanted to killed all "the germs", but at the same time they ate yoghurt/other food with microbes in it. And if I told them they have more "germs" in them then human cells.. they looked at me as if I was some idiot...
People need to be more realistic and only take action when needed.
Or if they take action, know why and not just clean "everything".

But, again, I am not saying there should not be any quality control on microbial growht