24 March, 2009
After having been approved, the Directive was amended 55 times. Further, (as for all the Directives) it was understood quite differently by the different Member-States when they transposed it in their own legal system. At the end, the regulations on cosmetic products seemed neither similar nor even at least consistent. To overcome these increasingly obvious drawbacks  that  the ‘Cosmetics Directive’ will be replaced by the new European Regulation. The main advantage is that the full overhaul makes it possible to include all the successive amendments within one sole document, which eases understanding. Further, a Regulation being applicable as it is (without transposition), its provisions could be understood exactly the same way in all the European countries.

Basic Rules Unchanged

The new document is based on the same guidelines as in the previous Directive: what is a cosmetic product, the principle that it shall not be detrimental to the human health, the programming of the total ban of animal tests; the good practices of manufacture are mandatory;health authorities shall have access to the product information file; annexes listing forbidden ingredients or those subject to restrictions for use. All these requirements are still written, sometimes completed with new or …