Last January, BEUC had already published an open letter to protest against the new European Commission’s approach to CMRs, whose ban in cosmetic products will no longer be automatic: instead, it will depend on an SCCS assessment. Pending the publication of a Regulation supposed to settle the fate of almost 200 of them, this European Consumer Organization has hammered it in, this time with an open letter to Elżbieta Bieńkowska, the European Commissioner for Internal Market and Industry.
Letter of Monique Goyens, Director General of the BEUC, to Commissioner Bieńkowska
Dear Commissioner Bieńkowska,
The European Union prohibits the use in cosmetic products of ingredients that may cause cancer, change DNA or harm reproductive health (so-called CMR substances). This ‘CMR ban’ established through our cosmetics legislation is an essential safeguard of public health and consumer safety as well as tangible proof of how the EU benefits all its citizens.
BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation is therefore alarmed that the European Commission now no longer considers that CMR substances are automatically prohibited for use in cosmetic products; but instead insists that the ban in each case must be implemented through specific legal acts amending the Annexes of the Cosmetics Regulation. We caution that such an approach could create avoidable and unacceptable health risks for consumers.
Consumers are in frequent, intimate and often prolonged contact with cosmetic and personal care products: a survey of more than 2,300 people found that the average adult uses nine personal care products each day. This aggregate figure however hides significant variations. One in four women for example use at least 15 products daily, according to the same survey. Cosmetic and personal care products are thus …
