Cell based models for validation of safety of cosmetic products and ingredients

The use of cosmetic products has grown many folds in recent years. The consumer and regulatory bodies are more concerned about the hazardous outcome of these products on skin health. The development of alternative and effective safety assessment methodologies to avoid animal testing is an urgent need due to restrictions and ethical considerations set by various regulatory bodies such as OECD, COLIPA, and BIS. The new integrated approaches like in-vitro assays (Cell-based and Cell-free assays) are indispensable for assessing the safety of cosmetic products. In-vitro testing systems provide advantages over animal testing as they are more cost-effective, and less time-consuming. In this article, we present the details of some of the important invitro assays that are routinely used by different laboratories for validation of the safety of cosmetic ingredients.