With the seventh amendment now requiring that all cosmetic products sold in the EU should have a technical dossier containing specific safety evalutations of the finished products, full knowledge of all procedures relating to cosmetics safety is more important than ever.
Addressing this issue, the Vrije University cosmetics safety training course will be held from 2-7 April to address a number of key issues, including risk perception and assessment, validation methods, approaches to creating safety dossiers, alternatives to animal testing and even how to create a positive listing for a new ingredient.
Entitled 'Safety Assessment of Cosmetics in the European Union (EU),' the course aims to guide manufacturers through the difficulties relating to the often complex EU legislation, whilst clearly showing how to comply with it.
The organisers point out that the seventh amendment states that the safety evaluation must be performed by a qualified professional, holding a diploma in a related field of science or a similar discipline.
However, they also stresses that potential safety assessors of cosmetics should follow additional specific academic training in safety evaluation of cosmetics because of more specific requirements.
Reasons for this include the lack of relevance in certain aspects of general education programmes, additional training requirements for safety accessors in certain member states, as well as the requirement of the Seventh Amendments to move from in vivo to in vitro testing in safety assessment of cosmetic ingredients and products.
As well as these issues, the course will also consider the special needs of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), the growing awareness of the consumer, and the changing task of raw material suppliers for cosmetics.
It is also open to raw material suppliers, responsible persons of SMEs and contract laboratories, inspectors and legislators.
The course has been organised in tandem with the cosmetic industry and teaching is carried out at a high standard academic level. Emphasis will be given to key issues in safety evaluation including the 3R-methods and the interpretation of the results and what are the toxicological requirements by the Commission for cosmetic ingredients testing.
Practical courses, in which the realisation of a technical dossier for a finished cosmetic product is central, are included. The possibility will be given to all participants to pass a written exam at the end of the last day of the course.