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Here is what the FDA guidelines say about bacteria in cosmetic products:
"Cosmetic products are not expected to be aseptic; however, they must be completely free of high-virulence microbial pathogens, and the total number of aerobic microorganisms per gram must be low. Since there are no widely acceptable standards for numbers, temporary guidelines are used instead. For eye-area products, counts should not be greater than 500 colony forming units (CFU)/g; for non-eye-area products, counts should not be greater than 1000 CFU/g. The presence of pathogens would be particularly important in evaluating as unacceptable a cosmetic with a marginally acceptable count, e.g., 400 CFU/g for an eye-area product. Pathogens or opportunistic pathogens whose incidence would be of particular concern, especially in eye-area cosmetic products, include S. aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, P. aeruginosa and other species, and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Some microbes normally regarded as nonpathogenic may be opportunistically pathogenic, e.g., in wounds."
For a novice with a home kit, you would not know the exact count of the aerobic bacteria, yeast and fungi in your product(s). You would only see whether or not your product is contaminated. I'd rather sent my sample to be tested in a proper lab. I do not have access to a local lab, but samples can be easily mailed to a lab for testing. Those tests are not that expensive either. I am no expert on pathogens, so I would rather have someone do it for me that knows what they are doing. I am also sure that those labs have more sanitary conditions under which they test, which would be difficult to replicate at home.
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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.
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