Personal care products such as shampoo, lotion and nail polish can be hazardous for young children, says a study published in Clinical Pediatrics (June), noting that over 64,600 children below five years of age were treated for injuries related to cosmetic products between 2002 and 2016 in US hospitals. The study conducted over a period of 15 years by the Center for Injury Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus (USA), found that most injuries occurred when children swallow such products (75.7 percent) or the product made contact with a child’s skin or eyes (19.3 percent). Such ingestions and exposures often caused poisoning (86.2 percent) or chemical burns (13.8 percent).

“Kids this age can’t read, so they don’t know what they are looking at. They see a bottle with a colorful label that looks or smells like something they are allowed to eat or drink, so they try to open it and take a swallow. When the bottle turns out to be nail polish remover instead of juice, or lotion instead of yogurt, serious injuries can occur,” warns Rebecca McAdams, senior research associate at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital and co-author of the study.