Abstract

This study determines Mercury, Arsenic and Cadmium levels in selected herbal fairness cream brands in Sri Lankan market demonstrating the risk on dermal application. Brand quality is assessed by analyzing heavy metals levels in samples from 06 consecutive batches. Hg and Cd concentrations were determined by The GF-AAS method and HG-AAS was used to determine As concentration. Results indicated Hg contamination in its’ highest with Brand C (1.9880±7.71µg g-1 ×103), secondly for Brand B (6.130± 1.01µg g-1 ×103) followed by Brand A (38.16±16.41 µg g-1 ×103). Mean mercury values of above three brands exceeded USA-FDA permissible limits (1µg g-1/wet weight). ANOVA, Tukey’s test (p˂0.05) statistically concluded that mean Hg concentration of samples are significantly different batch-wise. Mean Cd level of brand A was recorded 3.954±0.7807 µg g-1 ×103, as the highest value. The values ranging from 0.01806-0.09922µg g-1×103, 0.1880-2.954 µg g-1×103, 0.08245-0. µg g-1×103were identified for brand B, C and D respectively. Arsenic levels in all brands found below the maximum permissible limit of 3 ppm. Inconsistencies of batches were observed for every brand regarding every metal, indicating inferior quality. Hence frequent analysis of heavy metal levels in herbal fairness creams is proven necessary.