Article 16 of the Cosmetics Regulation 1223/2009 provides that the European Commission is required to submit to the European Parliament and the Council an annual status report on the use of nanomaterials in cosmetic products and to review the provisions concerning nanomaterials of this Regulation. The Commission published it on July 22, 2021. It (timidly) paves the way for a revision of the definition, a review of the notification process and a pre-market authorization procedure extended to all nano-ingredients.
This report is structured in two parts:
• Section 1 – Status report on developments in the use of nanomaterials in cosmetic products
• Section 2 – Review of the provisions concerning nanomaterials of the Cosmetics Regulation
Conclusions of Section 1
• On average, 10 new cosmetic products containing nanomaterials are placed on the European Union (EU) market every day; this is only a fraction of the 800 new cosmetic products notified daily in CPNP. Overall, the use of nanomaterials concerns a rather limited number of all cosmetic products (about 1.5% of the total) and has been rather stable over the last five years.
• Most of the cosmetic products notified in the Cosmetic Products Notification Portal (CPNP) correspond to nanomaterials with a colorant or UV-filter function.
• There are differences in the percentage of newly notified cosmetic products containing nanomaterials among EU countries (from 0.8% to 5.5%) as well as in the share of the overall notifications of nanomaterials (from 6.5% to 43.7%).
• The 2019 Commission Catalogue of nanomaterials represented a rather accurate picture of the market, albeit with the inherent limitations stemming from the notification process.
• Most of the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) opinions …
