A look at the EU Cosmetics Regulation a year on – work to be done

Last year saw the first Cosmetics Compliance Summit attempt to address the issues and confusion around the new regulation, and this year’s, in October, will look at the situation a year on.

Speaking as part of his work in both conferences, Garrett Moran, Director of Product Safety at Oriflame, admits there are still a few grey areas and drawn out processes, but that there is more clarity now.

Nanomaterials​

At the start of the year there was a delay in publishing the EU register of nanomaterials, which is a list of all nanomaterials used in cosmetics (not an endorsement of their safety), which Moran says was due to a large number of discrepancies in the notification portal for nanomaterials.

“Companies should ensure that the nanomaterials they have notified are correct or face the prospect of having to remove products from the market,”​ says the regulatory expert.

“The SCCS have published opinions on the safety of 4 of the most widely used nanomaterials, Titanium Dioxide, Zinc Oxide, Tinosorb M and Carbon Black. These have not been published in the Annexes of the Regulation yet but it is expected that this will happen before the end of 2014.”​

Claims​

Claims is another area which many have sought clarity on since the new regulation was put in place. All claims made on cosmetic products must comply with the Common Criteria as outlined in Regulation No 655/2013.

The six common criteria to which claims must comply, outlined by Moran are: Legal Compliance, Truthfulness, Evidential Support, Honesty, Fairness, and Informed Decision Making.

When it comes to the use of some claims, Garrett says that the use of ‘hypoallergenic’, for example, is not a claim that is recommended by the SCCS.

“It is for each company to decide what level of substantiation is required for individual claims​,” he says. “Provided the claim is clearly a cosmetic claim and the product is clearly a cosmetic product the layer of the skin affected is not so important.”​

“A cosmetic product crosses the line when the products function or its claims are no longer cosmetic. The definition of a cosmetic must always be kept in mind and the claims made on a cosmetic product must be of a cosmetic nature otherwise it runs the risk of being regulated as a medicine.”​

Garrett will be speaking further on this topic at the upcoming Cosmetics Compliance Summit on October 14-16 in London.