The 2009 Colipa General Assembly held in Lake Bled, Slovenia in May, had a lot to live up to following last years insightful event. However, the list of educational presentations on recent concerns in the EU C&T industry managed to do just that, Louise Prance reports
Over the past decade the European cosmetics industry has been subject to much scrutiny. The media, consumers and regulatory bodies have all begun to question what actually comprises the formulations we as a society have so unquestioningly up to now slathered onto our skin. As a whole, the science behind a brand has been of relatively little significance in the past, and provided the products appeared to work, the ingredients behind those effects seemed of little consequence. But as the rise of the naturals and organic industry began to take hold, so too did a growing awareness of cosmetic formulations and questions started to be asked.
As it stands today the European C&T industry is now fully immersed in a battle to adhere to the many new regulations and legislations that have come into force over the past decade and the updating of legislation that has been around some 30 years. Whether it is for the greater good of the consumer or not, the fact remains that the unending level of red tape, new rules, old rules and deadlines leaves many in the business feeling unsure and uncertain about the future.
Fortunately the Colipa Scientific Forum and General Assembly 2009, held in Lake Bled, Slovenia in May, was on hand to soothe many uneasy minds and lay to rest some of the demons that have surrounded the industry over the past year.
Out with the old
The first presentation of the Scientific Forum, Scientific advice in the EU: new roles and rules for the scientific committees, was delivered by Dr Panagiotis Daskaleros, DG Sanco from the European Committee. Daskaleros concentrated on the pertinent issues surrounding the scientific advisory bodies within the EU. Daskaleros first spent some time explaining the organisational structure of the EU scientific advice network and how it worked. There are the agency bodies, such as ECHA (REACH), EFSA and EMEA and there are the scientific committees under the European Commission, SCENIHR, SCHER, SCCS (formerly SCCP) – established by the Commission last year which replaced some older committees. Daskaleros looked at what the work of each specific committee (such as the SCCS giving advice on risks related to cosmetics) and the principles each aims to abide by - independence, excellence and transparency. With the committees being so new Daskaleros went on to explain how the aim of the three commissions is to allow positive steps forward for the cosmetics industry with regard to achieving a greater understanding of scientific risk assessment in the EU and internationally. The day to day functioning of the committees includes undertaking the revised Rules of Procedure (which had updates as late as the day before the Colipa General Assembly), stakeholder dialogue, international risk assessment dialogue and building risk assessment capacity (including the training of risk assessors). The revised Rules of Procedure will no doubt play a prominent role in all future scientific advice, with the revision allowing for more detailed and transparent rules on topics such as principles and standards for scientific advice, the format and content of scientific opinions, international collaboration and dialogue, rapid advice and accelerated procedures and coordination among the three committees.
Meanwhile attention was paid to the need to have co-ordination between all the EU risk assessment bodies, not just the committees, in order to create a common risk assessment framework that would be universally acknowledged both in Europe and internationally, with a comprehensive dialogue between policy makers, researchers and stakeholders. He then moved on to the need to create such co-operation on an international scale in order to establish common principles for the guidance of scientific advice and to ensure a high level of competence globally. With three initiatives under way in the form of global workshops and conferences, it is a positive indication of things to come. However, other issues for the future were touched upon, including the need to improve terminology and communication on risks and uncertainties and for risk assessment training to have a more streamlined focus, according to Daskaleros.
Ongoing challenge
sNo doubt one of the biggest scientific challenges to face the cosmetics industry over the past decade is the European cosmetics legislation regarding animal testing. Following the major amendment of the European Cosmetics Directive in 2003, a comprehensive ban on any animal testing was introduced to roll out over a ten year period.
Milestones for the ban began in 2004 when a complete ban on animal testing of finished cosmetics products came into force. However, the most significant date for cosmetic manufacturers was no doubt March this year, after which the EU legislation prohibited both the testing of products and ingredients on animals whether or not an alternative safety assessment had been introduced. In her presentation Safety assessment of cosmetic products after March 2009: skin irritation, eye irritation, genotoxicity Dr Julia Scheel, VIS-corporate product safety and human safety assessment for Henkel, gave a brief overview of the scientific challenges that the bans impose and how the industry can complete safety assessments past this year’s deadline. Scheel began by outlining the achievements recorded so far in this field and by discussing the Weight-of-Evidence (WoE) basic principle in safety assessments - whereby all available information is considered in an assessment according to its relevance, with the evidence consisting of many forms. These include human experience (clinical data, history of use etc), structural information (QSAR), and historical animal data. Moving on, Scheel focused more directly on the alternative animal testing methods developed so far, and the hope of ones to come. Looking individually at skin irritation, eye irritation and genotoxicity testing it became apparent that genotoxicity tests were by far the hardest to replace. For skin irritiation testing there are three models that have been validated as stand-alone in vitro replacements for the commonly used draize test – EpiSki, EpiDerm and SkinEthic. Eye irritation did not have as much success, with no single in vitro test developed to replace the rabbit Draize test, with the organotypic assays accepted only for specific and limited regulatory purposes. It was a similar story for genotoxicity testing, with one of the main issues being that there are “several accepted in vitro mutagenicity and genotoxicity assays in place, but no single test which detects all types of carcinogens”. However, according to Scheel there are two ongoing Colipa projects to address the issues surrounding these tests.
The March 2009 deadline, however, is by no means the end of the arduous process in terms of the roll out of the ban, with another milestone date being 11 March 2013, which brings about even more challenges. After this date the entire ban will come into force, which will mean that any marketing of any finished cosmetic product or ingredient that has been tested on animals after the established time frames is strictly prohibited. This gives the industry just four years to come up with alternative tests to fill the current gaps.
Ingredients under the spotlight
As anyone in the C&T business will know there is always a list of ingredients that are under review as being troublesome or which cause risk. And with the consumer focus shifting onto what is in their products, it is the role of regulatory bodies such as Colipa to keep these ingredients on the radar. Evelyn Coelis, issue manager science and research, Colipa, spoke about the ingredient developments since the last Colipa General Assembly in her talk Ingredients under the spotlight. As ever, the new Cosmetic Directive legislation means changes. From February 2008 to April 2009 there have been over 60 ingredients used in hair dyes banned, while many for nail products have also been cut. And the cull doesn’t end there. In February of this year four draft directives were presented as part of the new legislation. Coelis also gave a comprehensive list of ingredients that were seeking SCCS opinions (of which over half were for hair dye substances and included parabens and a UV filter) while other ingredients and issues were also pending mandates for an SCCS scientific opinion, including colorants for toothpaste, triclosan and whether fragrance ingredients need to be labelled. Coelis highlighted that Colipa follows many ingredient issues and hair dye dossiers and is involved in many (self-funded) ongoing ingredient defence projects for parabens, nanoTiO2, formaldehyde and iodine containing ingredients, allowing the industry to react quickly to any ingredient problem that arises.
Wrapping up her presentation Coelis concluded that the 2008/2009 period had been a success, thanks in part to the successful relationship with the SCCS, which has come about by the continued submission of dossiers and the quality of these papers. Looking to the future, Coelis felt that the industry focus on the re-cast of the cosmetics directive would be detrimental to ingredients due to attention being very much on the correct implementation of the new directive. However, there will be more high profile ingredient submissions, with Coelis predicting that there will be an increased scrutiny of hair dyes and nano-sized particles.
Re-cast ramifications
Of course the basis for the scientific ingredient changes has stemmed from the biggest legislative change in the European cosmetics industry for some time. The re-cast of the Cosmetics Directive has been in consultation and threatening to take place for some years, however the move into a more streamlined regulation has now happened and changes for product manufacturers are underway. Gerald Renner, director science and research for Colipa, put the focus of his presentation on the key features of the new regulation that would make a difference and effect companies.
According to Renner the underlying philosophy of the original directive remains unchanged, it has simply been consolidated to allow for a more comprehensive and legible regulation for all countries involved. The key goals of the directive – be safe, be able to demonstrate and give adequate information – all remain. However, the new regulation is more explicit with its objectives being to increase further implementation of EU harmonisation and to give an unrivalled level of protection for human health. This commitment to human health means that the new regulation has gone into further detail on the definition of some terms following a lack of clarity in the previous directive. These definitions include ‘nanomaterials’, ‘placing on the market’ and ‘(serious) undesirable effect’. Moving on to the safety and responsibilities section, there is a greater clarity in the regulation on who has what responsibilty. Renner also clearly drove home that it was the member state’s responsibility to take control and ensure only compliant cosmetic products are put on the market.
Other changes for safety issues were minimal, but with a greater emphasis of responsibility placed on the distributor for the correctness of labelling, while the overall safety responsibility remains with the manufacturer/importer, but there are no major changes that will affect the daily business of a product manufacturer. Other amendments that have occurred from the regulation re-cast are product notification, with all national schemes now replaced by one electronic european notification.
Renner also touched upon safety assessment objectives, with the major changes being the need to add more detail on the purpose/role of each assessment and to clarify and strengthen the qualifications of the safety assessor responsible for the finished product – with all of these notifications to be combined in a Cosmetic Safety Report. As an additional element, all of the documentation is now required in PIF (programe information file) before being placed on the market. Perhaps a more interesting change to the directive was the new amendments to the overall system of substance regulation. “The big change in this respect was the inclusion of nano materials,” said Renner. This related to the fact that products containing nanomaterials now need to be notified six months prior to them appearing on the market, while the notification has to include the safety information of the nanomaterial. Likewise product labelling now needs to indicate the use of nanomaterials. Other speculative issues were laid to rest with Renner discussing the new legislation on carcinogens, mutagens or reprotoxic (CMR) substances and the allowance of alcohol, “With CMR substances there is a realisation that some, like alcohol, are really not a problem and can be used and justified,” said Renner. Therefore in the regulation some CMR 1a&b substances will be allowed in exceptional circumstances.
Implementation action plan
Following from Renner’s educational talk was Dr Odile de Silva, head of scientific external affairs, research and development for L’Oréal and chair of the Colipa strategic project team (SPT) for the EU re-cast. De Silva concentrated on Colipa’s action plan for implementation of the new regulation. “The main objectives are primarily to have an industry working in a predictable and stable environment,” said de Silva. “We need to watch closely following the re-cast, however we are sure that the way forward is to set standards and speak with one voice, as one industry.” She outlined four main objectives of the SPT, which included following up the implementation of the new cosmetics regulation and giving support to the commission and member states, while also helping Colipa members get to grips with the changes. Giving an overview of the expected time line dates for the re-cast (the entry comes into force July 2009) and how the layout of the new text will look, de Silva stressed that what was needed for a successful implementation was a productive working relationship between the commission and the industry, and a need to cover products already on the market as well as new products. The core areas of activity were pointed out as correcting the original text, getting correct interpretations and a correct implementation of new guidelines for issues such as nanomaterials notification etc.
Outlining the core duties of the SPT task force, de Silva illustrated the key priorities they would work on during the rest of 2009. These included the obvious duties such as getting organised under the new re-cast and others such as checking translation issues. Summarising, de Silva touched upon the ultimate goals of the SPT for the next year, which were to concentrate on commission guidelines, the industry guidelines, industry guidelines document and a communications package. The first workshop for members will be held in November this year.
Consumer protection
The second day’s activity at the Colipa General Assembly had a more consumer-based focus, bar one discussion from Dr Horst Wenck, chair of Colipa SPT alternatives to animal testing, on Research activities to ensure safety testing without animal use. Going over and clarifying issues that speakers from the Scientific Forum spoke about the day before. Wenck concurred that the new animal testing legislation is set to be one of the biggest challenges the EU cosmetics industry has faced and that key innovations such as the manufacturing of sunscreens will be the worst hit if acceptable alternatives to tests such as genotoxicity are not found. Wenck hinted that many scientists don’t think the March 2013 deadline is feasible, but that Colipa was the driving force for new alternatives stating: “Science alone cannot solve the problem of the bans – a comprehensive strategy is needed of science plus legal plus communication plus advocacy.”
Based on the theme of the assembly, which was Value and values in today’s cosmetics industry, the two remaining speakers gave food for thought about how best to satiate the growing appetite of the consumer – who is looking for more than just efficacious cosmetic products. Dr Romana Jordan Cizeli, a member of the European Parliament took to the floor to discuss Consumer demand, the European Union’s industrial policy and sustainability. Cizeli explained that consumers now want their rights improved and are demanding transparent information on a product, detailing its ethical production process. Explaining the recent environmental achievements of the parliament to date (such as reducing greenhouse gases by 20%), Cizeli explained that manufacturers shouldn’t see environmental goals as a threat but as an incentive to make the EU the world leader in ethical products. The environmental issues Cizeli looked at included the product’s carbon footprint, fairtrade and sustainability. Impressed by how the cosmetics industry has responded so far, Cizeli said the core values of the industry are in the right place and what is needed to continue on the right track is more research and development, harmonisation from all stakeholders and for more investment in the private sector to bridge the gap between the public and private sectors.
Finally, Cizeli said: “The underlining challenge for a better regulation is an excess of red tape, however, this new piece of legislation has cut red tape. Indeed changes are never easy but our actions count and what we do now will affect future generations. The cosmetics industry’s ability to innovate is pinnacle to the economy.”
A helping hand
The core topics of the Colipa Scientific Forum and General Assembly were to be expected given the major changes happening with European cosmetics legislation at present. However, the two-day event managed to give the knowledgeable audience a comprehensive training course of what the new legislation would mean for them. Fundamentally, Colipa achieved what it set out to do. It provided the guidance needed to navigate through the increasing amount of change in the industry.Over the past decade the European cosmetics industry has been subject to much scrutiny. The media, consumers and regulatory bodies have all begun to question what actually comprises the formulations we as a society have so unquestioningly up to now slathered onto our skin. As a whole, the science behind a brand has been of relatively little significance in the past, and provided the products appeared to work, the ingredients behind those effects seemed of little consequence. But as the rise of the naturals and organic industry began to take hold, so too did a growing awareness of cosmetic formulations and questions started to be asked.
As it stands today the European C&T industry is now fully immersed in a battle to adhere to the many new regulations and legislations that have come into force over the past decade and the updating of legislation that has been around some 30 years. Whether it is for the greater good of the consumer or not, the fact remains that the unending level of red tape, new rules, old rules and deadlines leaves many in the business feeling unsure and uncertain about the future.
Fortunately the Colipa Scientific Forum and General Assembly 2009, held in Lake Bled, Slovenia in May, was on hand to soothe many uneasy minds and lay to rest some of the demons that have surrounded the industry over the past year.
Out with the old
The first presentation of the Scientific Forum, Scientific advice in the EU: new roles and rules for the scientific committees, was delivered by Dr Panagiotis Daskaleros, DG Sanco from the European Committee. Daskaleros concentrated on the pertinent issues surrounding the scientific advisory bodies within the EU. Daskaleros first spent some time explaining the organisational structure of the EU scientific advice network and how it worked. There are the agency bodies, such as ECHA (REACH), EFSA and EMEA and there are the scientific committees under the European Commission, SCENIHR, SCHER, SCCS (formerly SCCP) – established by the Commission last year which replaced some older committees. Daskaleros looked at what the work of each specific committee (such as the SCCS giving advice on risks related to cosmetics) and the principles each aims to abide by - independence, excellence and transparency. With the committees being so new Daskaleros went on to explain how the aim of the three commissions is to allow positive steps forward for the cosmetics industry with regard to achieving a greater understanding of scientific risk assessment in the EU and internationally. The day to day functioning of the committees includes undertaking the revised Rules of Procedure (which had updates as late as the day before the Colipa General Assembly), stakeholder dialogue, international risk assessment dialogue and building risk assessment capacity (including the training of risk assessors). The revised Rules of Procedure will no doubt play a prominent role in all future scientific advice, with the revision allowing for more detailed and transparent rules on topics such as principles and standards for scientific advice, the format and content of scientific opinions, international collaboration and dialogue, rapid advice and accelerated procedures and coordination among the three committees.
Meanwhile attention was paid to the need to have co-ordination between all the EU risk assessment bodies, not just the committees, in order to create a common risk assessment framework that would be universally acknowledged both in Europe and internationally, with a comprehensive dialogue between policy makers, researchers and stakeholders. He then moved on to the need to create such co-operation on an international scale in order to establish common principles for the guidance of scientific advice and to ensure a high level of competence globally. With three initiatives under way in the form of global workshops and conferences, it is a positive indication of things to come. However, other issues for the future were touched upon, including the need to improve terminology and communication on risks and uncertainties and for risk assessment training to have a more streamlined focus, according to Daskaleros.
Ongoing challenges
No doubt one of the biggest scientific challenges to face the cosmetics industry over the past decade is the European cosmetics legislation regarding animal testing. Following the major amendment of the European Cosmetics Directive in 2003, a comprehensive ban on any animal testing was introduced to roll out over a ten year period.
Milestones for the ban began in 2004 when a complete ban on animal testing of finished cosmetics products came into force. However, the most significant date for cosmetic manufacturers was no doubt March this year, after which the EU legislation prohibited both the testing of products and ingredients on animals whether or not an alternative safety assessment had been introduced. In her presentation Safety assessment of cosmetic products after March 2009: skin irritation, eye irritation, genotoxicity Dr Julia Scheel, VIS-corporate product safety and human safety assessment for Henkel, gave a brief overview of the scientific challenges that the bans impose and how the industry can complete safety assessments past this year’s deadline. Scheel began by outlining the achievements recorded so far in this field and by discussing the Weight-of-Evidence (WoE) basic principle in safety assessments - whereby all available information is considered in an assessment according to its relevance, with the evidence consisting of many forms. These include human experience (clinical data, history of use etc), structural information (QSAR), and historical animal data. Moving on, Scheel focused more directly on the alternative animal testing methods developed so far, and the hope of ones to come. Looking individually at skin irritation, eye irritation and genotoxicity testing it became apparent that genotoxicity tests were by far the hardest to replace. For skin irritiation testing there are three models that have been validated as stand-alone in vitro replacements for the commonly used draize test – EpiSki, EpiDerm and SkinEthic. Eye irritation did not have as much success, with no single in vitro test developed to replace the rabbit Draize test, with the organotypic assays accepted only for specific and limited regulatory purposes. It was a similar story for genotoxicity testing, with one of the main issues being that there are “several accepted in vitro mutagenicity and genotoxicity assays in place, but no single test which detects all types of carcinogens”. However, according to Scheel there are two ongoing Colipa projects to address the issues surrounding these tests.
The March 2009 deadline, however, is by no means the end of the arduous process in terms of the roll out of the ban, with another milestone date being 11 March 2013, which brings about even more challenges. After this date the entire ban will come into force, which will mean that any marketing of any finished cosmetic product or ingredient that has been tested on animals after the established time frames is strictly prohibited. This gives the industry just four years to come up with alternative tests to fill the current gaps.
Ingredients under the spotlight
As anyone in the C&T business will know there is always a list of ingredients that are under review as being troublesome or which cause risk. And with the consumer focus shifting onto what is in their products, it is the role of regulatory bodies such as Colipa to keep these ingredients on the radar. Evelyn Coelis, issue manager science and research, Colipa, spoke about the ingredient developments since the last Colipa General Assembly in her talk Ingredients under the spotlight. As ever, the new Cosmetic Directive legislation means changes. From February 2008 to April 2009 there have been over 60 ingredients used in hair dyes banned, while many for nail products have also been cut. And the cull doesn’t end there. In February of this year four draft directives were presented as part of the new legislation. Coelis also gave a comprehensive list of ingredients that were seeking SCCS opinions (of which over half were for hair dye substances and included parabens and a UV filter) while other ingredients and issues were also pending mandates for an SCCS scientific opinion, including colorants for toothpaste, triclosan and whether fragrance ingredients need to be labelled. Coelis highlighted that Colipa follows many ingredient issues and hair dye dossiers and is involved in many (self-funded) ongoing ingredient defence projects for parabens, nanoTiO2, formaldehyde and iodine containing ingredients, allowing the industry to react quickly to any ingredient problem that arises.
Wrapping up her presentation Coelis concluded that the 2008/2009 period had been a success, thanks in part to the successful relationship with the SCCS, which has come about by the continued submission of dossiers and the quality of these papers. Looking to the future, Coelis felt that the industry focus on the re-cast of the cosmetics directive would be detrimental to ingredients due to attention being very much on the correct implementation of the new directive. However, there will be more high profile ingredient submissions, with Coelis predicting that there will be an increased scrutiny of hair dyes and nano-sized particles.
Re-cast ramifications
Of course the basis for the scientific ingredient changes has stemmed from the biggest legislative change in the European cosmetics industry for some time. The re-cast of the Cosmetics Directive has been in consultation and threatening to take place for some years, however the move into a more streamlined regulation has now happened and changes for product manufacturers are underway. Gerald Renner, director science and research for Colipa, put the focus of his presentation on the key features of the new regulation that would make a difference and effect companies.
According to Renner the underlying philosophy of the original directive remains unchanged, it has simply been consolidated to allow for a more comprehensive and legible regulation for all countries involved. The key goals of the directive – be safe, be able to demonstrate and give adequate information – all remain. However, the new regulation is more explicit with its objectives being to increase further implementation of EU harmonisation and to give an unrivalled level of protection for human health. This commitment to human health means that the new regulation has gone into further detail on the definition of some terms following a lack of clarity in the previous directive. These definitions include ‘nanomaterials’, ‘placing on the market’ and ‘(serious) undesirable effect’. Moving on to the safety and responsibilities section, there is a greater clarity in the regulation on who has what responsibilty. Renner also clearly drove home that it was the member state’s responsibility to take control and ensure only compliant cosmetic products are put on the market.
Other changes for safety issues were minimal, but with a greater emphasis of responsibility placed on the distributor for the correctness of labelling, while the overall safety responsibility remains with the manufacturer/importer, but there are no major changes that will affect the daily business of a product manufacturer. Other amendments that have occurred from the regulation re-cast are product notification, with all national schemes now replaced by one electronic european notification.
Renner also touched upon safety assessment objectives, with the major changes being the need to add more detail on the purpose/role of each assessment and to clarify and strengthen the qualifications of the safety assessor responsible for the finished product – with all of these notifications to be combined in a Cosmetic Safety Report. As an additional element, all of the documentation is now required in PIF (programe information file) before being placed on the market. Perhaps a more interesting change to the directive was the new amendments to the overall system of substance regulation. “The big change in this respect was the inclusion of nano materials,” said Renner. This related to the fact that products containing nanomaterials now need to be notified six months prior to them appearing on the market, while the notification has to include the safety information of the nanomaterial. Likewise product labelling now needs to indicate the use of nanomaterials. Other speculative issues were laid to rest with Renner discussing the new legislation on carcinogens, mutagens or reprotoxic (CMR) substances and the allowance of alcohol, “With CMR substances there is a realisation that some, like alcohol, are really not a problem and can be used and justified,” said Renner. Therefore in the regulation some CMR 1a&b substances will be allowed in exceptional circumstances.
Implementation action plan
Following from Renner’s educational talk was Dr Odile de Silva, head of scientific external affairs, research and development for L’Oréal and chair of the Colipa strategic project team (SPT) for the EU re-cast. De Silva concentrated on Colipa’s action plan for implementation of the new regulation. “The main objectives are primarily to have an industry working in a predictable and stable environment,” said de Silva. “We need to watch closely following the re-cast, however we are sure that the way forward is to set standards and speak with one voice, as one industry.” She outlined four main objectives of the SPT, which included following up the implementation of the new cosmetics regulation and giving support to the commission and member states, while also helping Colipa members get to grips with the changes. Giving an overview of the expected time line dates for the re-cast (the entry comes into force July 2009) and how the layout of the new text will look, de Silva stressed that what was needed for a successful implementation was a productive working relationship between the commission and the industry, and a need to cover products already on the market as well as new products. The core areas of activity were pointed out as correcting the original text, getting correct interpretations and a correct implementation of new guidelines for issues such as nanomaterials notification etc.
Outlining the core duties of the SPT task force, de Silva illustrated the key priorities they would work on during the rest of 2009. These included the obvious duties such as getting organised under the new re-cast and others such as checking translation issues. Summarising, de Silva touched upon the ultimate goals of the SPT for the next year, which were to concentrate on commission guidelines, the industry guidelines, industry guidelines document and a communications package. The first workshop for members will be held in November this year.
Consumer protection
The second day’s activity at the Colipa General Assembly had a more consumer-based focus, bar one discussion from Dr Horst Wenck, chair of Colipa SPT alternatives to animal testing, on Research activities to ensure safety testing without animal use. Going over and clarifying issues that speakers from the Scientific Forum spoke about the day before. Wenck concurred that the new animal testing legislation is set to be one of the biggest challenges the EU cosmetics industry has faced and that key innovations such as the manufacturing of sunscreens will be the worst hit if acceptable alternatives to tests such as genotoxicity are not found. Wenck hinted that many scientists don’t think the March 2013 deadline is feasible, but that Colipa was the driving force for new alternatives stating: “Science alone cannot solve the problem of the bans – a comprehensive strategy is needed of science plus legal plus communication plus advocacy.”
Based on the theme of the assembly, which was Value and values in today’s cosmetics industry, the two remaining speakers gave food for thought about how best to satiate the growing appetite of the consumer – who is looking for more than just efficacious cosmetic products. Dr Romana Jordan Cizeli, a member of the European Parliament took to the floor to discuss Consumer demand, the European Union’s industrial policy and sustainability. Cizeli explained that consumers now want their rights improved and are demanding transparent information on a product, detailing its ethical production process. Explaining the recent environmental achievements of the parliament to date (such as reducing greenhouse gases by 20%), Cizeli explained that manufacturers shouldn’t see environmental goals as a threat but as an incentive to make the EU the world leader in ethical products. The environmental issues Cizeli looked at included the product’s carbon footprint, fairtrade and sustainability. Impressed by how the cosmetics industry has responded so far, Cizeli said the core values of the industry are in the right place and what is needed to continue on the right track is more research and development, harmonisation from all stakeholders and for more investment in the private sector to bridge the gap between the public and private sectors.
Finally, Cizeli said: “The underlining challenge for a better regulation is an excess of red tape, however, this new piece of legislation has cut red tape. Indeed changes are never easy but our actions count and what we do now will affect future generations. The cosmetics industry’s ability to innovate is pinnacle to the economy.”
A helping hand
The core topics of the Colipa Scientific Forum and General Assembly were to be expected given the major changes happening with European cosmetics legislation at present. However, the two-day event managed to give the knowledgeable audience a comprehensive training course of what the new legislation would mean for them. Fundamentally, Colipa achieved what it set out to do. It provided the guidance needed to navigate through the increasing amount of change in the industry.