article · Micromachines
Counterfeit perfumes can present health risks to consumers due to the presence of regulated allergens. Researchers assessed analytical methods to identify volatile compounds and distinguish authentic perfumes from fake counterparts. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, the investigation profiled the volatile components and identified 10 allergens across the samples, finding that several allergens were present exclusively in the imitation products. Furthermore, an electronic nose system was tested on the headspace of aqueous perfume solutions. Combined with chemometric classification tools, the electronic nose successfully separated the counterfeit fragrances from the original brands. Principal Component Analysis demonstrated strong discriminatory capability, with the first three principal components capturing 98.09 percent of the dataset information.
Counterfeit cosmetics often contain hazardous compounds that trigger allergic reactions in consumers. Verifying authenticity through reliable analytical techniques protects public health by identifying illicit, unregulated formulations. Demonstrating that electronic nose systems can accurately detect fakes provides a path toward faster, more accessible screening tools for identifying counterfeit goods.
This research is at an applied and tested stage, demonstrating proof of concept in a laboratory setting. The approach could enable rapid authenticity verification and consumer safety screening for regulatory authorities, customs agencies, and fragrance manufacturers. Implementing an electronic nose combined with chemometric classifiers offers a potentially streamlined alternative to traditional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for detecting imitation cosmetics.
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The Scientific Committee on Cosmetic and Non-Food Products has identified 26 compounds that may cause contact allergy in consumers when present in concentrations above certain legal thresholds in a product. Twenty-four of these compounds are volatiles and can be analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) or electronic nose (e-nose) technologies. This manuscript first describes the use of the GC-MS approach to identify the main volatile compounds present in the original perfumes and their counterfeit samples. The second part of this work focusses on the ability of an e-nose system to discriminate between the original fragrances and their counterfeits. The analyses were carried out using the headspace of the aqueous solutions. GC-MS analysis revealed the identification of 10 allergens in the perfume samples, some of which were only found in the imitated fragrances. The e-nose system achieved a fair discrimination between most of the fragrances analyzed, with the counterfeit fragrances being clearly separated from the original perfumes. It is shown that associating the e-nose system to the appropriate classifier successfully solved the classification task. With Principal Component Analysis (PCA), the three first principal components represented 98.09% of the information in the database.
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DOI: 10.3390/mi14030524
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