Pharma-Ecology, 2nd Edition

5Personal Care Products of Environmental Concern

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Influence of the germ theory in developing proper hygienic practices and related increased use of personal care products.
2. How advances in public health have contributed to an exponential increase in global personal care product usage.
3. Chemical attributes of personal care products and their characterization.
4. Better understanding of impact of personal care product use on the environment.

The amount of information about personal care products in the environment was comparatively limited at the time of the first edition. That picture has changed since then as to warrant a separate chapter for these compounds. Thus, personal care products such as fragrances and musks, detergents, and disinfectants will be discussed in relation to their active ingredients, specific uses, and volumes produced as well as chemical characteristics.

Personal care products broadly include a number of compounds we use in our daily lives ranging from soaps, detergents, perfumes, aftershaves, and other maintenance (e.g. cleaning agents, disinfectants, sprays, deodorants, etc.) products. The use of personal care products has gone on possibly since the existence of humankind. By all means, their use steadily increased from around the time when Anton van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria that he, at that time, referred to as “wee animalcules.” The work of Louis Pasteur almost two centuries thereafter showed the presence of microorganisms ...