Health Canada has just opened a consultation on several changes to its cosmetic regulations. The most important one is to provide information on the presence of certain allergens in product formulas. Measures to improve market surveillance and various administrative changes are also planned.
The regulatory proposal open for consultation has three main components.
A requirement to disclose certain fragrance allergens
Health Canada is proposing to require the disclosure of certain fragrance allergens on cosmetic labels when any of the specific fragrance allergens are present in the formulation at a concentration greater than 0.01% in rinse-off products and 0.001% in leave-on products.
Canada is in fact proposing to align itself with the provisions in force in the European Union by including in the Canadian regulations the fragrance allergens identified in Annex III to the European Cosmetics Regulation 1223/2009 via ambulatory incorporation by reference.
This would initially concern the 24 allergens currently labellable in Europe, and would allow the automatic addition of the 87 others, included in the extended list currently being finalised at European level. These provisions would come into force two years after the date of registration of the new regulation.
A flexibility for small packages
Cosmetics sold in small packages would be allowed to use a website to disclose the complete list of ingredients, including fragrance allergens. A bilingual statement on the product label is planned to direct consumers to the website where the list of ingredients can be found. An alternative …
