Bath products for children are added to bath water with the purpose of making bath-ing fun. The bath products can create foam, change the color of the water, or even transform the bath water into slime or jelly. Many of these bath products contain fragrances like strawberries or watermelon, for example. Depending on their purpose, these products may fall under the regulations for either toys or cosmetics, or both.
The goal of this project was to gain knowledge about the ingredients used in various children's bath products. This includes the types of fra-grances and colorants, as well as any other potentially problematic substances these products may contain. Additionally, the project aimed to investigate if these products could pose a risk to children's health during use.
The research showed that there is a wide variety of children's bath products. The majority of the products examined contained perfume and/or essential oils (82%) and colorants (73%), several of which have allergenic properties. 15 products were analyzed for the presence of five prioritized substances. For most of the products, there is no health risk in terms of exposure to these substances. However, for one product (purchased and produced outside the EU), the content of the fragrance HHCB is so high (0.18%) that the substance, which is skin sensitizing and suspect-ed of being an endocrine disruptor, is considered to pose a risk to children with repeated use of the product