The regulations on cosmetic products and ingredients are based on risk assessments and evidence provided by science to carry them out. This message was often repeated at the second Cosmetics Europe International Conference last June 16-17, 2015 in Brussels, but it is still difficult to make it reach the general public. How could the industry make it easier to understand and get consumers to adhere to it? This was the object of a conference on risk communication.
Professor Ragnar Löfstedt is the Director of the King’s Centre for Risk Management at London’s King’s College. The risk communication specialist came to explain cosmetics industry representatives what made it important and how it could best be implemented.
Risk perception
The first tip Pr. Löfstedt gave was to read a book: Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman. It is this behavioural economist, Professor at Princeton University and Nobel Prize in Economics, whose team demonstrated that risks were not always perceived the same way by everyone, and who highlighted the variables in this perception.
Natural risk vs Technological risk
‘Naturalness is seen as an emanation of God’, the specialist explained, ‘and when it is associated with a risk, no one can be reproached with anything. By contrast, technology is developed by men, which means it is always possible to find someone responsible, someone to blame. People seek Naturalness by instinct.’
Voluntary risk vs Involuntary risk
In 1969, a study conducted by Chauncey Starr showed that people are a thousand times more concerned about the risks they feel are imposed to them than those they take willingly. As an example, we can go skiing without getting worried, although it represents …
