Cosmetics & Personal Care | Monthly bulletin | November 2022
Benzene in Cosmetics
One of the major challenges involved in launching a cosmetic product on the market is ensuring that your product meets regulations and is safe for the end user.
Benzene is known to cause cancer in humans according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Numerous studies have confirmed that exposure to Benzene whether through inhalation, skin absorption, ingestion, skin or eye contact poses significant health hazards.
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sets minimum testing standards drug companies must follow and relies on those manufacturers to ensure their products are safe.
The FDA recognizes the serious dangers of benzene and lists it as a ‘Class 1 solvent’ that should not be used in standard manufacturing of drugs substances, excipients, and drug products because of its toxicity.
Recently, benzene was found in aerosol cosmetic products such as dry shampoo or antiperspirants, leading to the recall of many of its products.
Eurofins Cosmetics & Personal Care offers the full suite of testing necessary to ensure that your product is compliant, high quality, safe and performant. With our extensive experience, Eurofins is pleased to offer benzene testing for an assortment of aerosol products and can develop specific protocols to meet your needs at very low LOQ. Our teams can also work with you to identify and mitigate any production processes that may lead to the formation of benzene in your product.
Zero waste claim certified
The new Zero Waste to Landfill Certification Service from Eurofins Assurance helps businesses to substantiate their waste reduction commitments and achieve UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 cost-effectively.
The beauty industry has been making great efforts in introducing more environmental-friendly ingredients, materials and processes in recent years to minimise their impacts to the fragile environment. Looking into measuring and reducing solid waste disposal in the production stages is very important as landfill creates much adverse effects.
Designed for different industries including cosmetic and personal care companies, the Certification takes a laser-focused approach to assess and verify the level of effort taken to minimise waste disposal to landfills by the businesses. Upon completion of whole audit process, the businesses will be awarded Zero Waste to Landfill Certificates, which will be valid for 12 months.
You can leverage findings from reports to identify gaps and drive improvement, as well as to improve transparency of your company’s achievement to public by disclosing fact-based results and certificates, which has become more critical as there are more regulations pressing for corporate due diligence.
More information of the Zero Waste to Landfill Certification Service can be found here.
Allergens Testing
Recently, the European Commission published a highly anticipated draft, showing planned amendments to Annex III to Regulation (EC) No. 1223/20093, with a list of a further 46 allergens.
Eurofins has developed a cost-efficient modular testing system to support the demands of their customers. The analysis will be carried out depending on the type of product and its individual analytical requirements, achieved by offering a routine analysis that can also support extended requests within an appropriate time frame.
As a key member of the CEN workshop, our team of experts has installed a state-of-the art GC-MSD method in the laboratory, according to the latest edition of the norm DIN ISO EN 16274 (Methods for analysis of allergens – Quantification of suspected fragrance allergens in consumer products - GC analysis of ready-to-inject sample). Using the CEN method, compliant with the legislation and tailored to the client’s needs, the laboratory analyses 57 fragrance substances in addition to the ‘classical’ 26 allergens, thereby covering the upcoming expected candidates of the amended Annex III.
There remains a gap between allergens included in the SCCS/1459/11 Opinion and those covered by the CEN scope. As a result, the laboratory has launched an additional testing package, consisting of a further 26 allergens.
