Nanomaterials in cosmetics: between scientism and technophobia

Nanotechnology is creating innovative products that are used in various production sectors, including the cosmetic industry. However, faced with a huge potential for applications, aspects of safety and methods of health risk assessment of nanomaterials (NM) remain highly controversial. This raises heated discussions in the scientific community, based mostly on emotion, with heated debate dominated by scientism on the one hand and on the other from technophobia, which disconcert the public opinion already poorly informed. Therefore, even for the use of nanocosmetics, some thoughts are necessary to understand if the results of the nanotoxicology research, conducted so far by in vivo and in vitro experimental models, reflect a real scenario of consumer exposure, and if we can say with certainty that nanoparticles dispersed in cosmetics by any media are safe from the point of view of their impact on human health as drawn from the current available scientific data. The objective of this presentation aims to point out: (i) application opportunities and possible scenarios of exposure to NM- containing cosmetics; (ii) concerns about the potential health effects of NM that depend on their specific characteristics and chemical-physical peculiarities; (iii) merits and limitations of toxicological evidence reported in the scientific literature regarding nano components used for solar filters such as ZnO and TiO2 nanoparticles.