Measuring menthol cooling in food, oral care, and cosmetic products using descriptive sensory analysis

The objective of this research was to develop standardized methodology for the descriptive sensory analysis (DSA) of consumer products containing menthol. In addition, this research employed the DSA methodology to differentiate food and cosmetic products based on formulation variation.; The persisting sensation elicited by menthol should motivate scientists to allow enough time between samples for adequate perceptual cessation. Products such as toothpaste and lozenges elicit cooling and burn that can endure up to 22 and 25 minutes after stimulation, respectively. This residual flavor from highly mentholated products could affect both chemesthetic and aromatic evaluations of food products. Toothpastes with higher cooling and burning intensities tended to suppress perception of less intense toothpastes that were later. In addition, repeated testing of mentholated products should also be considered; how many samples per session are optimal? Results from this research indicated that the testing of toothpastes should be limited to up to 3–5 samples depending on the overall intensity. Test site and the repeated testing of mentholated lotions during a session could impact chemesthetic perception. Mentholated lotions with higher menthol concentrations and chemesthetic additives, such as methyl salicylate, tended to suppress the perception of other chemesthetic stimuli on the same arm or over time during the testing session. In addition, the biceps appeared to be less sensitive to emulsions with higher amount of menthol and contained methyl salicylate. Given these results, evaluating mentholated lotions using multiple test sites on the arms is only recommended for slightly intense mentholated emulsions that do not contain additional chemesthetic irritants.; In both food and cosmetic products, increasing the fat content, i.e. oil in confections and silicone or oil in cosmetic emulsions, reduced the perception of the active ingredient, menthol. Hence, the solubilization of menthol in those formulations with higher fat content prevents its stimulation of the appropriate receptors in the oral and hairy skin.; Results from this research demonstrated that standardized methodologies should be maintained to ensure accurate performance by descriptive panelists when evaluating chemesthetic ingredients in finished products.