For the second year in a row, Sylvie Cupferman, Member of Cosmetics Europe's Expert Team Product Preservation and Microbiology International Director of L’Oréal R&I, came to the regulatory congress held in Chartres, France, on November 16-17, 2016, to make an update on the difficult situation of preservatives today, and to present the strategy developed by the industry to defend them.
At the previous edition of this congress, Sylvie Cupferman had sounded the alarm about the continuous decline of the number of preservatives available to formulators, and the issues it raised in terms of cosmetic product safety. This year, she came back in front of the same audience, and she started by taking note of the fact that the problem is now quite widely recognized.
Current situation
She cited as evidence the two working groups set up by the European Commission to study this issue: one in October 2015, the other in September 2016.
Outcome of the product preservation workshops
The two sessions gathered a few cosmetics industry representatives and ingredient suppliers, the SCCS experts, and several members of the European authorities. The idea was to make an update on the issue of preservatives and find solutions to address it.
The first effect of these meetings was the recognition of a crisis:
• The cosmetic industry is faced with the continued loss/restriction of preservative ingredients
• Preservative ingredients are being banned, product uses and/or use concentrations are being restricted at an alarming rate
• The innovation pipeline of new preservative ingredients is virtually empty
All this is obviously a problem for …
