The study is funded by the French ANSM and is conducted by the University of Western Brittany, UBO, in Brest. Its aim is to accurately estimate the exposure of the French population to cosmetic ingredients and products (how much is applied each time, how many times), in order to improve the assessment of their safety. It is now looking for volunteers.
Every year, the ANSM (National Agency for safety of medicine and health products) issues a call for projects to interested researchers teams. Among those selected in 2012, a "Probabilistic evaluation of the exposure of the French population to cosmetic products".
Given a lack …
The origin of the project is based on a simple finding: to accurately evaluate the safety for use of cosmetic products, the need exists to know how, in which quantities and how often they are used. This allows for the assessing the exposure to the ingredients they contain, especially those called "substances of interest" by the authorities. This means the substances that regularly make news story (parabens, phenoxyethanol, triclosan, phthalates, endocrine disruptors) or those that will not fail to be in the headlines soon.
Having a reliable database in this area is of the utmost importance to the users’ safety. Further, it is an essential aspect for the manufacturers to comply with their regulatory obligations, emphasized by the implementation of the new Cosmetics Regulation, on 11 July 2013, concerning the dossier of safety assessment.
But in fact, after the project causes, there is currently no specific data about the French population’s exposure to cosmetic products. The …
