Cosmetics Utilization Practice in Jigjiga Town, Eastern Ethiopia: A Community Based Cross-Sectional Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an interesting and well crafted piece of research describing the predictors of cosmetics use in an Eastern Ethiopian population, finding many predictors such as age group, sex, income level, marriage status, and level of education predict the use of cosmetics. I was impressed with the quantity and quality of data collected, as well as the extensive analysis. The data offer interesting insights into cross cultural practices in cosmetics and is a worthy addition to the literature. I only have a few comments regarding the theoretical framework of the study and the presentation of the results, described below.

Major comments:

1) The introduction, and the paper as a whole, is lacking an explanatory framework. What I mean by this is that the paper currently feels descriptive - results are obtained and described without linking them to broader areas of human behaviour. For example, we have some knowledge on how cosmetics affect appearance in biologically relevant ways - facial contrast (Jones et al., 2015; Russell et al., 2009) is higher in women, and cosmetics seem to exaggerate this feminine trait. Cosmetics also alter social perceptions of character, which could be used to alter someones standing in society (Etcoff et al., 2011; Mileva et al., 2016), and there are social perceptions of how much cosmetics is needed (Jones et al., 2014, Jones & Kramer, 2015). We also know that different cultures use cosmetics differently, but they all tend to share similar underlying principles (Russell, 2010). These references might help you extend the introduction into a broader, more theoretically driven one. They are from psychological literature, which I am not saying you should definitely use, but some kind of theoretical framework is required to put these results in context, e.g. Why is makeup a behaviour people engage in? Who engages in it and why?

Jones, A. & Kramer, R. (2015). Facial cosmetics have little effect on attractiveness judgments compared with identity. Perception 44(1), 79-86.

Mileva, V., Jones, A., Russell, R. & Little, A. (2016). Sex Differences in the Perceived Dominance and Prestige of Women With and Without Cosmetics. Perception

Jones, A., Kramer, R. & Ward, R. (2014). Miscalibrations in judgements of attractiveness with cosmetics. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 67(10), 2060-2068.

Jones, A., Russell, R. & Ward, R. (2015). Cosmetics Alter Biologically-Based Factors of Beauty: Evidence from Facial Contrast. Evolutionary Psychology 13(1)

Russell, R. (2009) A sex difference in facial pigmentation and its exaggeration by cosmetics. Perception, 38: 1211-1219.

Etcoff NL, Stock S, Haley LE, Vickery SA, House DM (2011) Cosmetics as a Feature of the Extended Human Phenotype: Modulation of the Perception of Biologically Important Facial Signals. PLoS ONE 6(10): e25656. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025656

2) The above concern about theoretical framework also applies to the discussion section, which I thought was stronger than the introduction, but still needed working into a theory. I was interested in the results regarding increasing likelihood of using cosmetics if younger, female, and single, as this has important implications for psychology. Women could compete for mates or resources through the use of cosmetics for example (see references below) and these kinds of findings would greatly enhance the findings you have discovered by way of theoretical explanations.

Hill, S. E., Rodeheffer, C. D., Griskevicius, V., Durante, K., & White, A. E. (2012). "Boosting Beauty in an Economic Decline: Mating, Spending, and the Lipstick Effect". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Netchaeva, E., & Rees, M. (2016). Strategically stunning: The professional motivations behind the lipstick effect. Psychological Science, 28(8) 1157-1158.

3) I was a bit confused by the inclusion of 'traditional cosmetics' in the manuscript. The paper did not really explain what those traditional cosmetics were, only the predictors of people wearing them. It would be better if the authors could explain what those kinds of cosmetics are, and discuss why they might be worn. Do the authors mean traditional cosmetics as in facial cosmetics (which is what first came to my mind) or perhaps traditional cosmetics as are worn in the region throughout history? Clarification is needed.

4) The results relied on logistic regression, which is a nice and easily interpretable statistic. I think the results could be more clearly explained for people who don't know this regression technique well. Table 3 has a lot of information and it took me a while to figure out, for example, that Educational Status is being contrasted with College & University as a reference. I see reference is at the top for female and male but its not entirely clear this applies throughout the table, a note at the bottom or even having the word 'Reference' next to the reference category would help.  Additionally, what is the value of reporting the crude odd ratio? I think it confuses things greatly to have two odds ratios reported. I am no expert on logistic regression but I feel like AOR is probably a safer bet, that is, it is more conservative a test to use. Could the authors also justify why a significant bivariate correlation is ground for entering the variable into a logistic regression as well? I feel like it makes more sense to just perform the logistic regression on its own.

5) Finally, I really think the authors should emphasise the importance of their work. So much work on cosmetics use has been done in Western populations, and this data is so well collected and analysed that this fact needs to be highlighted. This data tells us that cosmetics practices are broadly similar cross culturally, but also show more interesting differences regarding findings like marital status. I don't know if there are examples in the literature but I am sure married women in western cultures wear cosmetics. Drawing attention to these kinds of cultural similarities and differences frames the work theoretically and opens up interesting further avenues for research. Russells (2010) book chapter may provide interesting source material.

I have no minor comments at this stage, but really enjoyed the paper and think it has great merit once the above concerns have been addressed.

Author Response

Dear Editor,

We thank you for giving us the opportunity to revise our manuscript. We are also very much grateful for the constructive criticisms and suggestions forwarded by the reviewers, which in fact contributed a lot in improving the MS. We have attempted to incorporate as much as possible comments given by the referees (see below the point-by-point response) and hope the MS is now in a form to be acceptable in your esteemed journal. .

Regards,

Tariku Shimeles 

Reviewer: # 1

1) The introduction, and the paper as a whole, is lacking an explanatory framework. What I mean by this is that the paper currently feels descriptive - results are obtained and described without linking them to broader areas of human behaviour. For example, we have some knowledge on how cosmetics affect appearance in biologically relevant ways - facial contrast (Jones et al., 2015; Russell et al., 2009) is higher in women, and cosmetics seem to exaggerate this feminine trait. Cosmetics also alter social perceptions of character, which could be used to alter someones standing in society (Etcoff et al., 2011; Mileva et al., 2016), and there are social perceptions of how much cosmetics is needed (Jones et al., 2014, Jones & Kramer, 2015). We also know that different cultures use cosmetics differently, but they all tend to share similar underlying principles (Russell, 2010). These references might help you extend the introduction into a broader, more theoretically driven one. They are from psychological literature, which I am not saying you should definitely use, but some kind of theoretical framework is required to put these results in context, e.g. Why is makeup a behaviour people engage in? Who engages in it and why?

·            We have tried to change the introduction section by including the suggested references in addition; we have included additional information with new references.

2) The above concern about theoretical framework also applies to the discussion section, which I thought was stronger than the introduction, but still needed working into a theory. I was interested in the results regarding increasing likelihood of using cosmetics if younger, female, and single, as this has important implications for psychology. Women could compete for mates or resources through the use of cosmetics for example (see references below) and these kinds of findings would greatly enhance the findings you have discovered by way of theoretical explanations.

·            We have revised the discussions by including the relevant references and by linking them with psychology and human behavior.

3) I was a bit confused by the inclusion of 'traditional cosmetics' in the manuscript. The paper did not really explain what those traditional cosmetics were, only the predictors of people wearing them. It would be better if the authors could explain what those kinds of cosmetics are, and discuss why they might be worn. Do the authors mean traditional cosmetics as in facial cosmetics (which is what first came to my mind) or perhaps traditional cosmetics as are worn in the region throughout history? Clarification is needed.

·            We have revised the term 'traditional cosmetics' in to “traditional herbal cosmetics” we have operationally defined it as these are homemade cosmetics prepared form indigenous herbs in the study area.

4) The results relied on logistic regression, which is a nice and easily interpretable statistic. I think the results could be more clearly explained for people who don't know this regression technique well. Table 3 has a lot of information and it took me a while to figure out, for example, that Educational Status is being contrasted with College & University as a reference. I see reference is at the top for female and male but its not entirely clear this applies throughout the table, a note at the bottom or even having the word 'Reference' next to the reference category would help.  Additionally, what is the value of reporting the crude odd ratio? I think it confuses things greatly to have two odds ratios reported. I am no expert on logistic regression but I feel like AOR is probably a safer bet, that is, it is more conservative a test to use. Could the authors also justify why a significant bivariate correlation is ground for entering the variable into a logistic regression as well? I feel like it makes more sense to just perform the logistic regression on its own.

·            We have included all the relevant information in Table 3. we have also removed the crudes odds ratio from the result section.

·            The reason why all independent variables were not entered in the multivariate logistic model is to avoid complexity and undermine the statistical power of the test as the number of independent variables is larger in the study. As a common rule of thumb, the ratio of variable to case is taken as 1 variable to 10-15 cases. Just not to miss those independent variables which might be significantly associated with the outcome variable in the multivariate regression, and  even though they are not significant on the bivariate analysis, all variables with p < 0.20 in the bivariate analysis were included to the multivariate logistic mode.

5) Finally, I really think the authors should emphasise the importance of their work. So much work on cosmetics use has been done in Western populations, and this data is so well collected and analysed that this fact needs to be highlighted. This data tells us that cosmetics practices are broadly similar cross culturally, but also show more interesting differences regarding findings like marital status. I don't know if there are examples in the literature but I am sure married women in western cultures wear cosmetics. Drawing attention to these kinds of cultural similarities and differences frames the work theoretically and opens up interesting further avenues for research. Russells (2010) book chapter may provide interesting source material.

Thanks      for the information we have tried to include the relevant points      accordingly.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors researched the types of cosmetics used and their usage levels in the town of Jigjiga, Eastern Ethiopia. Overall, this research adds to the literature by presenting findings from a non-WEIRD sample. However, there are several changes that would need to be implemented before this manuscript is ready for publication. I have made a number of requests, as outlined below.

Abstract

-The abstract presented in the manuscript file and the one presented in the journal interface are different. For example, the journal interface abstract includes “Statistical significance was set at P≤0.05 (95% CI).”, while the manuscript abstract does not have that sentence. Statistical information such as the p threshold in not something that should be reported in an abstract.

Introduction

-Mainly, it is too brief and more background about why the study was conducted is needed. For example, the global cosmetics market was worth 460 billion USD in 2014 and is expected to reach 675 billion USD by 2020 (Business Wire, 2015), therefore understanding which products are used, by whom, and for what purposes provides a valuable contribution.

-In line 44, the authors mention the “lack of clarity on determinants of usage”. There are plenty of references that can be used to explain current determinants of usage. For instance, Cash & Cash (1982) found that participants reported being more self-confident and sociable when wearing cosmetics.

-If word limit allows, it would be beneficial for the authors to expand on the sentences in Lines 45/46. Which age groups, which careers, which geographical locations have increased cosmetic use?

-Line 47 says that cosmetics use has “psychological implications such as anxiety, and self-confidence”. Does cosmetics use decrease anxiety and increase self-confidence? Please clarify the direction based on references. For instance, Boehncke et al. (2002) found that decorative cosmetics improve the quality of life in patients with skin diseases.

-Line 53, elaborate by giving examples of some of the safety tips.

Grammatical errors:

-Line 39 and 40 “and/or” is used twice in the same sentence when it is only needed before the last item on the list.

-Line 41, “makeups” should be “makeup”

-Line 43, “indicative” should be “indicator” or remove the “an”  to leave “could be indicative”

-Line 44, remove “a” from sentence for “example as protection”

-Line 48, should be “cosmetics” not “cosmetic”

-Line 48, should be “an” instead of “at increasing trend”

-Line 50, should be “channels” not “channel”

-Line 51, replace “be” or change the sentence. For example, “makes cosmetics products rank among the…”

Methods

Overall, the methods section is clear and provides the needed information. I just have a few requests:

-Please either provide in the manuscript text, as a table, or as an appendix, what the actual questions were. For example, in line 72 the authors mention asking about the type and number of used cosmetics, please expand to specify the questions presented to the participants. It’s important for the readers to know if the questions were open-ended (e.g., Please tell us the type of cosmetics you use) or more specific (e.g., Do you use body cream & lotion?).

-That participants were interviewed in Ethiopia is a strong methodological point of this study and one that needs to be pointed out. After line 75, it could be added that participants were interviewed in Ethiopia since previous research has found that online samples are not representative of populations in developing countries (Batres & Perrett, 2014).

-Please specify if the participants were asked only about their own cosmetics use or of their entire household’s cosmetics use. If participants were only asked about their own use, then it should be addressed in the discussion that part of the reason why “body cream and lotions” and “shampoos and conditioners” were reported as the top utilized cosmetics is because they are utilized by both genders.

Grammatical errors:

-Line 71, should be a colon “:” rather than a semi-colon “;”

-Line 81, add “a” before “single population”

-Line 92, “were” instead of “was”

-Line 94 “in” instead of “to”

-Line 96, “analyses” instead of “analysis”

Results

The results are clearly presented in tables and I only have some grammatical corrections:

-Line 112, should be “purposes” not “purpose”

-Line 113, should be a colon “:” rather than a semi-colon “;”

-Line 115, should be “three-fourths” rather than “three-fourth”

-Line 118, add “an” for “as an indicator”

-Line 119, add “a” to “on a daily basis”

Discussion

-In Line 163, the authors claim that since their population comprised of various groups, it might underestimate the prevalence of cosmetics use. Rather than it underestimating the prevalence, I think the authors should point out that their study provides a more representative and accurate depiction of cosmetics use because it is indeed based on a large population with various groups.

-In Line 83, remove “majority” before 39% since it is not more than 50%.

-I would suggest removing the statistics from the discussion section (for example, in line 194: AOR=4.66; 95% CI [1.91-11.34]). They are already presented in the results section and in the tables and do not need to be repeated here.

-In line 196, the authors mention participants’ intent to attract their opposite sex. The present study does not ask about sexual orientation and therefore such a claim cannot be made. Rather, you can mention their intent to attract a partner.

-In line 197, the authors mention that cheaper costs might also contribute to that practice. Which practice are they referring to? The finding that younger people utilize cosmetics more? If so, why are cosmetics cheaper for younger people?

-Line 207, are the authors suggesting that women make their own cosmetics? Were there any questions regarding to home-made cosmetics?

-Rather than just mentioning possible recall bias in line 211, please mention references which successfully use cross-sectional studies and list recall bias as one of the possible limitations.

-Was there any data on the amount of money spent on cosmetics? If not, please add that as another limitation.

Grammatical errors:

-Line 161, remove “-“ between “which-the”

-Line 169, add “the” before “top utilized”

-Line 171, add “the” before “top utilized”

-Line 171, add a comma after lipstick

-Line 179, replace & with “and”

-Line 181, should be “three-fourths” rather than “three-fourth”

-Line 190, should be a colon “:” rather than a semi-colon “;”

-Line 195, remove “of” from “of single”

-Line 196, remove “to” from “to for”

-Line 202, remove the “;”

-Line 206, “to” instead of “for”

Conclusion

-Much attention is given in the introduction about the link between cosmetics and toxic exposure and the need to increase public awareness. However, the conclusion barely ties into that. Please elaborate on what would be the aim of a community awareness program (mentioned in line 217). To encourage people to read specific information on labels? What about those who are illiterate?

Grammatical errors:

-Line 213, “were” instead of “was”

-Line 214, add “the” before “vast”

-Line 215, “measures” rather than “measure”

-Line 217, instead of “there needs to be done a community awareness creation program to tackle this problem”, “this suggests that a community awareness program is needed to tackle this problem”.

General comments:

-Throughout the manuscript the authors mention modern and traditional cosmetics, please define what these categories mean.

-Across the entire manuscript, please put the categories in quotations in order to make it easier for the reader. For example, in line 191 if feeling clean and attractive was one possible answer, then present it as “feeling clean and attractive” but if it was two possible answers then present it as “feeling clean” and “feeling attractive”.

References to add:

Business Wire (2015). Global Cosmetics Market - By Product type, Ingredient, Geography, And Vendors - Market Size, Demand Forecasts, Industry Trends and Updates, Supplier Market Shares 2014- 2020.

Cash, T. F., & Cash, D. W. (1982). Women's use of cosmetics: psychosocial correlates and consequences. International Journal of Cosmetic Science, 4(1), 1-14.

Batres, C., & Perrett, D. I. (2014). The influence of the digital divide on face preferences in El Salvador: People without internet access prefer more feminine men, more masculine women, and women with higher adiposity. PloS one, 9(7), e100966.

Boehncke, W. H., Ochsendorf, F., Paeslack, I., Kaufmann, R., & Zollner, T. M. (2002). Decorative cosmetics improve the quality of life in patients with disfiguring skin diseases. European Journal of Dermatology, 12(6), 577-80.

Author Response

Dear Editor,

We thank you for giving us the opportunity to revise our manuscript. We are also very much grateful for the constructive criticisms and suggestions forwarded by the reviewers, which in fact contributed a lot in improving the MS. We have attempted to incorporate as much as possible comments given by the referees (see below the point-by-point response) and hope the MS is now in a form to be acceptable in your esteemed journal.Following is a point by point response for reviewer 2 issues .

Regards,

Tariku Shimeles

Reviewer #2:

Abstract

1.      The abstract presented in the manuscript file and the one presented in the journal interface are different. For example, the journal interface abstract includes “Statistical significance was set at P≤0.05 (95% CI).”, while the manuscript abstract does not have that sentence. Statistical information such as the p threshold in not something that should be reported in an abstract.

·         Accepted and  addressed

Introduction

1.       Mainly, it is too brief and more background about why the study was conducted is needed.

o   We have tried to change the introduction section by including the suggested references in addition; we have included additional information with new references.

2.      In line 44, the authors mention the “lack of clarity on determinants of usage”. There are plenty of references that can be used to explain current determinants of usage. For instance found that participants reported being more self-confident and sociable when wearing cosmetics.

o   Thank you and modified accordingly

3.      If word limit allows, it would be beneficial for the authors to expand on the sentences in Lines 45/46. Which age groups, which careers, which geographical locations have increased cosmetic use?

o   Thank you and modified accordingly

4.      Line 47 says that cosmetics use has “psychological implications such as anxiety, and self-confidence”. Does cosmetics use decrease anxiety and increase self-confidence? Please clarify the direction based on references. For instance, Boehncke et al. (2002) found that decorative cosmetics improve the quality of life in patients with skin diseases.

o   Modified accordingly

5.      Line 53, elaborate by giving examples of some of the safety tips.

o   We have addressed in the last part of the introduction

6.       Grammatical errors

o   All the grammatical errors have been revised and corrected accordingly.

7.      Please either provide in the manuscript text, as a table, or as an appendix, what the actual questions were. For example, in line 72 the authors mention asking about the type and number of used cosmetics, please expand to specify the questions presented to the participants. It’s important for the readers to know if the questions were open-ended (e.g., Please tell us the type of cosmetics you use) or more specific (e.g., Do you use body cream & lotion?).

o   We have attached the questionnaires in the appendix

8.      That participants were interviewed in Ethiopia is a strong methodological point of this study and one that needs to be pointed out. After line 75, it could be added that participants were interviewed in Ethiopia since previous research has found that online samples are not representative of populations in developing countries (Batres & Perrett, 2014).

o   Thank you and modified accordingly

9.      Please specify if the participants were asked only about their own cosmetics use or of their entire household’s cosmetics use. If participants were only asked about their own use, then it should be addressed in the discussion that part of the reason why “body cream and lotions” and “shampoos and conditioners” were reported as the top utilized cosmetics is because they are utilized by both genders.

o   Thank you and modified accordingly

·          

10.  Grammatical errors:

o   The corrections are incorporated according to the suggestions

11.  In Line 163, the authors claim that since their population comprised of various groups, it might underestimate the prevalence of cosmetics use. Rather than it underestimating the prevalence, I think the authors should point out that their study provides a more representative and accurate depiction of cosmetics use because it is indeed based on a large population with various groups.

o   Thank you and modified accordingly

12.  In Line 83, remove “majority” before 39% since it is not more than 50%.

o   Thank you and modified accordingly

13.  I would suggest removing the statistics from the discussion section (for example, in line 194: AOR=4.66; 95% CI [1.91-11.34]). They are already presented in the results section and in the tables and do not need to be repeated here.

o   Accepted and modified accordingly

14.  In line 196, the authors mention participants’ intent to attract their opposite sex. The present study does not ask about sexual orientation and therefore such a claim cannot be made. Rather, you can mention their intent to attract a partner.

o   Modified accordingly

15.  In line 197, the authors mention that cheaper costs might also contribute to that practice. Which practice are they referring to? The finding that younger people utilize cosmetics more? If so, why are cosmetics cheaper for younger people?

o   The explanations are provided in the discussions section

16.  Line 207, are the authors suggesting that women make their own cosmetics? Were there any questions regarding to home-made cosmetics?

o   Yes and it is reflected on the questionnaires

17.  Rather than just mentioning possible recall bias in line 211, please mention references which successfully use cross-sectional studies and list recall bias as one of the possible limitations.

o   Thank you and modified accordingly

18.  Was there any data on the amount of money spent on cosmetics? If not, please add that as another limitation.

o   There was no data which asks on the amount of money spent on cosmetics and this issue is addressed on the limitation.

19.  Grammatical errors: from line 161- 206

o   Corrected accordingly

20.  Much attention is given in the introduction about the link between cosmetics and toxic exposure and the need to increase public awareness. However, the conclusion barely ties into that. Please elaborate on what would be the aim of a community awareness program (mentioned in line 217). To encourage people to read specific information on labels? What about those who are illiterate?

o   Thank you and corrected accordingly

21.  Grammatical errors: from line 213-217

o   Corrected accordingly

22.  Throughout the manuscript the authors mention modern and traditional cosmetics, please define what these categories mean.

o   The definitions are included in as operational definitions section

23.  Across the entire manuscript, please put the categories in quotations in order to make it easier for the reader. For example, in line 191 if feeling clean and attractive was one possible answer, then present it as “feeling clean and attractive” but if it was two possible answers then present it as “feeling clean” and “feeling attractive”.

o    

24.  References to add:

We have incorporated the given references as well as other relevant citations.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for your attentive revisions to my concerns. I am happy to recommend acceptance in its current form.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would like to thank you for giving us your sincere suggestions and critics to the earlier version of our manuscript and your acceptance of the revised form.  Your comments have contributed a lot in improving the MS and bringing to its present form.

We hope the MS is now in a form to be acceptable by journal.

Best regards,

Tariku Shimels; Corresponding author   

Reviewer 2 Report

I thank the authors for addressing my concerns and believe the manuscript is now much stronger. I do, however, still have a few corrections (some of which were pointed out in my first review) that I believe should be incorporated before the manuscript is accepted for publication.

In terms of content, I just have a few points that I believe need to be addressed: 1) it is unclear to me from the manuscript how the sample went from 601 to 559 (Lines 124-125) so this should be clarified; 2) Table 2 is very confusing to read and should be rearranged; 3) across the entire manuscript, the categories should be placed in quotations in order to make it easier for the reader (e.g., if feeling clean and attractive was one possible answer, then present it as “feeling clean and attractive” but if it was two possible answers then present it as “feeling clean” and “feeling attractive”).

The rest of the corrections listed are mostly grammatical.

Abstract:

Line 20: There should be a comma after countries.

Line 26: “of the users” should be removed.

Line 23: This entire sentence is not needed in the abstract: “Logistic regression was used to determine factors associated with cosmetics use”.

Line 26: There should be a comma after female and “in the” should be added: “Being single, female, and in the age group…”

Lines 31-33: The direction of educational and occupational status is not specified and therefore I believe the sentence would read better if it was all generalized: “Education, occupation, marital status, age, and gender were all important factors that determined the use of cosmetics in the study area”.

Introduction:

Line 42: There should be a comma after societies.

Line 43: Should be “Studies indicate that female faces have greater…”

Line 45: Should be “increase when cosmetics are applied, and when…”

Line 46: Should be “Applying cosmetics also increases….”

Line 49: Change “It” to “They”.

Line 68: Change “;” to “:”

Line 72: Add an “s” to “practice” and change to “have a significant role in increasing public…”

Line 74: Add an “s” to “practice”

Methods:

Line 86: Should be “aged 18 or older…”

Line 89: Change “;” to “:” (this was pointed out in my first review)

Line 91: Change to “see Appendix 1 for the full questionnaire”

Line 95: Should be “The questionnaire was prepared…”

Lines 96-97: No need so say from each HH twice so change to “One eligible adult was randomly selected from each household”.

Line 98: Add an “s” to “background”

Line 101: Single should not be capitalized.

Line 105: Operational definitions should be a separate category and hence should be italicized.

Lines 106-109: These can be combined into one paragraph and written out: “Traditional herbal cosmetics refer to homemade cosmetics prepared from indigenous herbs in the study area. On the other hand, modern cosmetics refer to manufactured, packed and labeled by international or national companies and commercially available in local markets”. Also, please provide references from where you found these definitions.

Line 106: Should be “from” not “form”

Line 107: Please add a period at the end of the sentence.

Line 114: Remove the “s” from “participants”

Line 117: Change “was” to “were”

Line 119: Change “to” to “in”

Results:

Line 123: Respondents does not need to be capitalized

Lines 124-125: Please clarify how the sample went from 601 to 559. As it is currently written, it is unclear.

Line 126: 447 should be presented as number- it is only necessary to spell out the number when it starts the sentence.

Line 129: Change “have” to “had”

Line 129: Add an “s” after “third”

Line 137: Add an “s” after “purpose”

Line 141: Change “;” to “:”

Lines 141-143: Participant number should not just be listed after the categories without any punctuation. One way they could be re-written is: “country of production (209 participants, 40%)”…

Line 143: Change “to” to “for”

Line 143: Add “the” before “majority” and again, do not put the participant number listed after the categories without any punctuation: “The majority of the respondents (324 participants, 62%)…” (“387” in Line 144 for example is fine as is since it is part of the sentence).

Line 147: Add “them” after “purchased”

Line 147: “pharmacies” instead of “pharmacy”

Line 148: Add “the” before “majority”

Line 151: “practices” instead of “practice”

Table 2: The categories are hard to distinguish. Please rearrange so that it is easier to read (maybe like Table 1 with the category on the left column and the options in the middle column).

Line 156: Closing parenthesis needed after the CI

Line 157: Closing parenthesis needed after the CI

Line 158: Remove “;”

Line 160: Closing parenthesis needed after the CI

Line 162: You mentioned gender in lines 156-157 (“Males have less odds of using cosmetics than females” and then again here so either remove it in lines 156-157 or remove it here so that it is only presented once.

Line 168: And this applies to all your titles, please either capitalize all words in the title or just the first word but be consistent throughout the manuscript.

Line 169: “Remove “have”

Discussion:

Line 182: “cope” instead of “coping”

Line 184 and across the entire manuscript: Please put the categories in quotations in order to make it easier for the reader. For example, in line 184 if shampoos and conditioners was one possible answer, then present it as “shampoos and conditioners” but if it was two possible answers then present it as “shampoos” and “conditioners” (this was pointed out in my first review). I have not listed all of the instances that need to be changed (e.g., line 192, was “lipsticks, mascara, and liners” one question or three?) so please go through the entire manuscript and add quotations to all the categories.

Line 187: Please be consistent with the phrasing throughout the manuscript, is it body cream and lotions? Or cream and lotions? Or body creams and lotions? Or creams and lotions? Whichever phrasing was used, make sure it’s consistent throughout the manuscript.

Line 192: Add commas after lipsticks and after mascara

Line 197: Add an “s” to “ingredient”

Line 198: Remove “a” after “respondents gave”

Line 201: Add “The” before “majority”

Line 204: Again, it’s confusing to know which are the categories, was “quality and fragrance” one category or two? If two, then it should read “factors like health care recommendations, quality, and fragrance got…”

Line 209: Add “the” before “majority”                                    

Line 209: Add your Russell reference [6] to this sentence.

Line 211: Add “they” before “include”

Lines 211-213 (from my first review): Please put the categories in quotations in order to make it easier for the reader. For example, if feeling clean and attractive was one possible answer, then present it as “feeling clean and attractive” but if it was two possible answers then present it as “feeling clean” and “feeling attractive”.

Line 214: Please provide references.

Line 222: Remove “a”

Line 223: Add “the” before “unemployed”

Line 224: Add an “s” to “practice”

Line 225: Remove “;”

Line 228: Change “in” to “at”

Line 230: Add “may” since you have not definitively proven that, so could read “may contribute to their low utilization among housewives”

Line 231: “sufficient sample size which was composed of a variety…”

Line 232: Add an “s” to “characteristic”

Line 232: Add an “s” to “practice”

Line 238: Add a comma after female

Line 238: “use” instead of “uses”

Line 241: Higher than what? Should it just be “Reading labels was found to be high”?

Line 241: Add a comma after higher

Line 241: Change from “instruction to use” to “the instructions of use”

Line 242-243: Do sellers not already provide the relevant information?

Line 243: Add “to be” before “a community:”

Line 244: Remove “;”

Line 244: Remove “to be done”

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would like to thank you for providing us your sincere suggestions and corrections to the second version of our manuscript.  We also want to appreciate your patience and concern in thoroughly reading our work. Your comments and corrections have contributed a lot in improving the MS and bringing it to its present form. We have incorporated your issues as presented in the manuscript [highlighted form]. It is, therefore, to note you that our response here is general as per the content issues while the grammatical comments are incorporated there to the main MS.

1) For the request on the sample size change: It is a very good question. The point was that each[required of 601]  HH was approached for filling the questionnaire, but some were either unavailable or unresponsive. Hence, as you mentioned for the reader, it has been clarified and presented  as follows;

''From the total 601 HHs approached for the study, only 559 were available and successfully interviewed which gives a response rate of 93%.''

2) Table 2 clarity: Yes, and we have rearranged it as you suggested [the category to the left column and the options to the middle].

3) Category quotation. Thank you for raising this issue. We have tried to selectively address in the parts there seemed to happen a confusion i.e to categories on the cosmetics products name and combined terminologies. Accordingly, inconsistencies like you mentioned have been corrected and presented under quotations. However, we didn’t apply the changes for the whole variables [latter options of categories in table 2]. When we tried to apply changes to all, we noted that the result and discussion section become a bit unattractive. We, hence, hope that there is no clarity problem in its present form. 4) The rest corrections are incorporated to the MS .  

We hope the MS is now in a form to be acceptable by the journal.

Kind Regards,

Tariku Shimels; Corresponding author

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

I thank the authors for addressing my concerns and believe the manuscript is now ready for publication.

Author Response

Thank you for accepting our manuscript to be published in Journal of Cosmetics.

Tariku S, CA