The European Commission published on 6th July 2012 the Guidance on the safety assessment of nanomaterials in cosmetics. The document was drafted by the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) to help the cosmetics industry comply with Article 16 of Regulation (EC) No1223/2009 on cosmetic products, which entered into force on 11 July 2013.
Since 11 January 2013, says the European release, the cosmetics industry has to notify to the Commission, through the Cosmetic Products Notification Portal, all cosmetic products containing nanomaterials, six months prior to placing them on the market. They also have to provide specific data relevant for risk assessment purposes, which the Commission will submit to the SCCS, in case it has concerns. A checklist of required data has been included in the new Guidance to help them do so.
The publication adds to the existing Notes of Guidance from SCCS which already provide generic instructions to the cosmetics industry for the testing and safety evaluation of cosmetic ingredients. However, the new Guidance applies only to nanomaterials.
In light of the rapid advances in the field of nanotechnology and the ever increasing scientific knowledge about the safety of nanomaterials, the present Guidance is likely to be updated regularly.
In addition to the notification requirement described above, the Cosmetics Regulation requires labelling of nanomaterials (name of the ingredient, followed by ‘nano’ in brackets) in the ingredients list.
For further information
• See the full text of the Guidance on the safety assessment of nanomaterials in cosmetics (SCCS, 2012)
