Following the mandate given by the European Commission to the SCCS in February 2020, the Committee published its preliminary Scientific Advice on the safety of nanomaterials used in cosmetic products on October 2020. It has been subject to a commenting period of the minimum four weeks after its initial publication due to legislative constraints (from 5 October until 2 November 2020). Comments received during this period were considered by the SCCS. The final version has been amended.
Background
Faced with the successive “inconclusive” Opinions of the SCCS on nano-ingredients, due to insufficient data to make a decision on the risk it represents, the European Commission has found itself in a deadlock and unable to regulate these substances.
In order to break the deadlock, it therefore asked the SCCS “to provide a description of the specific concerns that have been identified for the nanomaterials” based not only on the data submitted by the industry, but also on the evidence in the scientific literature.
The Committee was also tasked to prioritise the ingredients listed in the European Catalogue of Nanomaterials for risk assessment and to review, in the light of these elements, the previous Opinions on nanoscale ingredients that had remained inconclusive.
For an exhaustive background information, see the articles
• Safety of nanomaterials in cosmetics: request for a scientific advice to SCCS, CosmeticOBS, 10 February 2020
• SCCS: Preliminary Opinion on the safety of nanomaterials in cosmetics, CosmeticOBS, 13 October 2020
Final version of the Scientific Advice
In bold, the parts that have been modified
1. The SCCS is requested to determine the nanomaterials, as published in the recent catalogue of nanomaterials of 2019, for which …
