SpheraCosmolife: a new tool for the risk assessment of cosmetic products

A new, freely available software for cosmetic products has been designed that considers the regulatory framework for cosmetics. The software allows an overall toxicological evaluation of cosmetic ingredients without the need for additional testing and, depending on the product type, it applies defined exposure scenarios to derive risk for consumers. It takes regulatory thresholds into account and uses either experimental values, if available, or predictions. Based on the experimental or predicted no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL), the software can define a point of departure (POD), which is used to calculate the margin of safety (MoS) of the query chemicals. The software also provides other toxicological properties, such as mutagenicity, skin sensitization, and the threshold of toxicological concern (TTC) to provide an overall evaluation of the potential chemical hazard. Predictions are calculated using in silico models implemented within the VEGA software. The full list of ingredients of a cosmetic product can be processed at the same time, at the effective concentrations in the product as given by the user. SpheraCosmolife is designed as a support tool for safety assessors of cosmetic products and can be used to prioritize the cosmetic ingredients or formulations according to their potential risk to consumers. The major novelty of the tool is that it wraps a series of models (some of them new) into a single, user-friendly software system.