Initiated in 2021, the revision process of the Cosmetics Regulation is largely in line with the European CSS (Chemicals Strategy for Sustainable Development). At the Cosmetics Europe Annual Conference, held on June 15-16, 2022, Gerald Renner, its Director of Technical Regulatory Affairs, presented the impacts of this strategy on the Cosmetics Regulation and the Association’s position on each of them.
First observation: cosmetic products are getting closer and closer to chemical products.
With 25 years spent at Cosmetics Europe, Gerald Renner knows what he is talking about when he makes a little history: “In the beginning, I must say that we were on a ‘regulatory island’, in splendid isolation. We were governed by the Cosmetics Directive, for those who remember, and really somewhat detached from the chemicals legislation.”
At that time, cosmetics had their own regulatory solutions, tailor-made and often different from those prevailing for other consumer products. They had a specific “nanodefinition”, a dedicated Scientific Committee whose only task was to assess the safety of cosmetics, a labelling totally based on risk and not at all on danger… For almost 40 years, the cosmetics industry lived with a really specific and tailor-made regulation.
But this time has come to an end.
The levers of the revision of the Cosmetics Regulation
As early as 2003, the first cracks came to crack this isolated planet when the ban on CMR (Carcinogenic, Mutagenic, Reprotoxic) substances came to link cosmetics to the chemical interface of classification within the CLP Regulation.
“This direct link between the classification of a chemical and the regulation of …
