Microbiological quality control of personal care products using traditional methods can take between 5 and 7 days to complete. This is frequently the rate limiting step in product release. Companies are looking to improve manufacturing efficiencies and to maximize resources by releasing products faster. ATP bioluminescence has been shown to be applicable to the detection of low levels of contaminating organisms in a diverse range of personal care products including detergent-based and soap-based products, cosmetics and toothpastes. The system described here has demonstrated the detection of less than 10 colony forming units per sample of a range of typical contaminants in these product types after enrichment for 24 h.