Personal care consortium flags cosmetics’ chemical and microbial risks based on EU and UK safety alerts

08 Aug 2022 --- The Cosmetic Toiletry & Perfumery Association (CTPA) has highlighted certain cosmetics that are “unsafe and noncompliant” as they pose a risk to consumer health. It bases its claims on the standards of the European Commission Safety Gate, which it frequently consults. The EU market authorities use this rapid alert system to regulate “dangerous consumer products.”

Hair dye bans in Germany
Hair dyes containing Barium peroxide, uncoupled p-aminophenol and Paraphenylenediamine (PPD) were found to pose chemical risks. 

Additionally, hair dyes with chemicals Toluene-2,5-Diamine, 5-Amino-o-cresol and uncoupled p-aminophenol were found to pose similar risks. Such hair dyes have been ordered by German authorities to be “destroyed.”

Hair dyes with 2-nitro-p-phenylenediamin also pose a chemical risk. However, no action has been taken yet by German authorities. 

Warnings against skin lightening creams
In Italy, skin-lightening creams that contain hydroquinone have been withdrawn from the market entirely due to chemical risk. Moreover, Germany has done the same and recalled the end users’ products laced with this chemical. Skin-lightening creams that contain the chemical hydroquinone have been withdrawn from Italian and UK markets. 

The UK’s market surveillance authorities, including the Office for Product Safety and Standards and Local Authority Trading Standards, have also flagged skin lightening creams that contain Hydroxyisohexyl 3-cyclohexene. 

Users have been advised to halt their use of it. Reportedly UK authorities have removed such products from the online marketplace. 

Face and body chemical risk
The UK has recalled face serum ampoules from the market. This packaging type is a small glass vial that must be broken in order for the serum to be used, which  poses a potential risk of injury for the consumer.  

In Lithuania, cosmetic face masks, hair growth serum, hair styling mousse and hand creams containing butylphenyl methylpropional (BMHCA) have been withdrawn from the market. 

Additionally, Austria has ordered spot and blemish face creams to be marked with warnings on the risk of use as it contains mercury. 

In other moves to mitigate chemical risk, the Czech Republic withdrew body creams containing methylchloroisothiazolinone and methylisothiazolinone (MCI and MI). 

Microbiological contamination
Sweden has withdrawn face creams with microbiological contamination as it detected Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a type of germ that can cause infections in humans, mostly in hospital patients. It can cause pneumonia. Wet wipes risk microbiological contamination as Pseudomonas aeruginosa was detected by UK authorities. 

The UK flags that wet wipes and personal care products may also pose the risk of microbiological contamination as Pseudomonas aeruginosa was also detected in some of these products, which have since been withdrawn from the market. 

Wet wipes have been under scrutiny for another reason – environmental degradation – drawing attention from activists who have supported its outright ban. In July, UK’s second longest river, the Thames, was swamped with wet wipes leading parliament to consider a Plastics (Wet Wipes) Bill. 

“Beauty brands and shops should all be moving toward a complete ban on plastics in wet wipes,” Fleur Anderson MP, member of parliament for Putney and shadow paymaster general, previously told PersonalCareInsights.

EU regulatory updates
The European Union recently revised the Classification, Labeling and Packaging (CLP) of Substances and Mixtures, which outlines the use of chemicals – 12 relevant for cosmetics use and six classified as carcinogenicity, mutagenicity and reproductive toxicity (CMR).

The Regulation entered into force and will be applied on November 23, 2023.

Aurélie Perrichet, regional director of Europe at IFRA, previously spoke to PersonalCareInsights, sharing concerns regarding the hazard-based regulations of the EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability – a sub-strategy of the European Green Deal. 

She explains that hazard-based regulations base their evaluations on a substance’s intrinsic properties without taking into account the exposure to the substance, conversely to a risk-based approach.

By Venya Patel