Abstract
Background The harmful health effects of personal care products especially cosmetics have engulfed many societies of the world especially the female section without an alarm. Objectives To estimate the prevalence of cosmetic usage and to assess the experiences of Saudi female undergraduate students in Wadi Al Dawasir province in an attempt to arouse general awareness among Saudi students about the harmful effects of the chemicals present therein. Methodology It is a cross-sectional study carried out with a total of randomly selected 106 college students (female) at undergraduate level. Two colleges for girls of Prince Sattam Bin Abdul Aziz University at Wadi Al Dawasir region were included. Standard questionnaire was set in Arabic and English both. T test and data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. Chi-square/Fisher's exact tests and a P value of Results The overall prevalence of using cosmetics (makeup) and average age of first use of the cosmetics was found to be quite high. Statistical analysis shows that 69.8% students applied daily and 23.6% students applied twice to thrice daily. Consequently, this makes a gross percentage of 93.4% among college going Saudi students who applied makeup on daily basis. The findings have shown that 93.2% female and married medical students use cosmetics twice/thrice daily. Similarly, 6.8% female and married medical students use cosmetics once daily. The findings have shown that 82.9% female and unmarried medical students possess knowledge about cosmetics. Similarly, 17.1% female and married medical students possess knowledge about cosmetics. Conclusion The usage of cosmetics was found to be extremely high among the college going Saudi students in Wadi Al Dawasir Region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Un-awareness regarding the harmful effects of cosmetics was found to be high among these students.