Database search for safety information on cosmetic ingredients.

Ethical considerations with respect to experimental animal use and regulatory testing are worldwide under heavy discussion and are, in certain cases, taken up in legislative measures. The most explicit example is the European cosmetic legislation, establishing a testing ban on finished cosmetic products since 11 September 2004 and enforcing that the safety of a cosmetic product is assessed by taking into consideration "the general toxicological profile of the ingredients, their chemical structure and their level of exposure" (OJ L151, 32-37, 23 June 1993; OJ L066, 26-35, 11 March 2003). Therefore the availability of referenced and reliable information on cosmetic ingredients becomes a dire necessity. Given the high-speed progress of the World Wide Web services and the concurrent drastic increase in free access to information, identification of relevant data sources and evaluation of the scientific value and quality of the retrieved data, are crucial. Based upon own practical experience, a survey is put together of freely and commercially available data sources with their individual description, field of application, benefits and drawbacks. It should be mentioned that the search strategies described are equally useful as a starting point for any quest for safety data on chemicals or chemical-related substances in general.