Updating aggregate consumer exposure assessment for cosmetics and personal care products: Phase IV of the Creme RIFM...

Exposure assessment is a critical component of fragrance safety evaluation and risk assessment. The Creme RIFM Aggregate Exposure Model is a probabilistic framework that estimates aggregate consumer exposure to fragrance ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products across dermal, inhalation, and oral routes. A key feature of the model is the ability to update consumer habits and practices data while maintaining a consistent assessment methodology. Phase IV incorporates Kantar Worldpanel consumer diary data collected throughout 2023, replacing the 2014-2015 dataset. The updated database includes 37,165 participants aged 11-79 years from the United States and five European countries. Integration of the new data required refinements to product categorization, product mapping, application-site assignment, and the addition of previously unrepresented product categories. Comparison of exposure estimates from the two datasets showed that consumer use patterns remained largely consistent. Differences were mainly attributable to methodological refinements, improved product mapping, changes in regional population coverage resulting from the exclusion of Italy in the 2023 dataset, and inclusion of new product categories. Overall, the update strengthens the model's relevance, robustness, and utility for fragrance safety and exposure-based risk assessment.