Mask on Beauty: Mask, Respirator, and Cloth Face Covering Wearers at Risks of Inhaling Abundant Respirable Hazards From Leave-On Facial Cosmetics

Abstract

With mounting scientific evidence, wearing masks, respirators, or cloth face coverings has proved to be an effective means of infection prevention and control of respiratory pathogens, which has become a universal requirement in public settings in the current pandemic. Yet, many people continue to wear beauty products, including leave-on cosmetics, in their daily activities for aesthetic purposes or workplace requirements. A widely overlooked risk, however, is that wearing masks or other face coverings upon beauty products may expose users to abundant respirable hazards in their confined breathing zone. Fine particulates of both mineral and plastic origins, with sizes between one hundred nanometers to several microns, constitute the main ingredients of cosmetic powders, which fall into the category of respirable hazards if excessively inhaled by human. There are major knowledge gaps on the hazard exposure to leave-on beauty products while wearing masks or face coverings for prolonged periods of time and on a regular basis. In this discussion, we demonstrate that, for sedentary individuals with a normal breathing pattern and no intentional touch or facial muscle movement, wearing a mask dramatically increases the quantities of fine particulates inhaled from leave-on cosmetic powders by humans in real office environments. Most of those particulates were in the sub-micron range, with some as loose aggregates of small particles in the order of 100 nm. Moreover, the confined microenvironment created by the mask and sorption of substances on particulates may also result in the inhalation of a plethora of cosmetic ingredients, such as volatile substances, dye pigments, and preservatives. As wearing masks and face coverings becomes a standard practice in public spaces, during the current pandemic and possibly extended to the post-pandemic era, the aggravated risk of inhaling respirable hazards from leave-on facial beauty products warrants further studies and safety assessments for vulnerable population groups.