Friday, August 26, 2011

Regulatory Conformity with Cosmetic Labeling Leads to Patron Confusion

By Pauly Bredow


Trying to understand and decode cosmetics labels is no straightforward attainment. Part of that reason is that the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) regulatory needs that govern beauty products are not as harsh as they with other products such as drugs and food. In fact thanks to the Fed. Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C), the FDA controls beauty products and their ingredients after they go to market. That suggests that they're sold to the general public with no need to go thru an approval process.



What is a cosmetic and what's a drug?


It's important to understand the greatest difference between a drug and a cosmetic according to the FDA, though note that an item can be catalogued as both a cosmetic and a drug.

- Cosmetic- according to the FDA, a cosmetics product is designed to be applied to the human body for cleansing, embellishing, promoting charm or altering the appearance. Examples of cosmetic items would include: lotions, perfumes, lipsticks, nail polish, makeup, mouthwash, and skin protection creams.

- Drug- according to the FDA a drug is designed to exert a physical effect on the body and is meant to be used to heal, lessen, treat or forestall an illness. Cosmetic labeling needs.

One of the main rules executive cosmetic labeling is that ingredients must be listed in descending order by quantity in the product. That implies the ingredient with the highest quantity will be labeled first, and then so on down the line. So in many ways the ingredients label is a consumer's best chum. This is your opportunity to see precisely what's in a product and in what relative amounts. This is essential for folk with allergies who need to avoid some ingredients, for example nuts or certain fruits.

The sole problem with an ingredients list is that customers may not recognise the names of the ingredients, no because they don't know what the things are, but because they are listed by their chemical names. One system of naming is known as the Global Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredient (INCI) list. So as an example rather than seeing an ingredient listed as "Almond Oil", it'd be created by the INCI name which is "Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis Oil". What quantity of people would know what Simmondsia Chinensis Seed Oil is? What if it was written instead as Jojoba oil? Even vitamins have to be listed by their chemical names, so the harmless Vitamin E ingredient gets written as Tocopheral. The reason for all of the nonsense is so that there'll be a consistent naming convention that everybody must follow. Anyone who does not know what an ingredient means can look it up in the Global Cosmetic Ingredient Compendium. Some products, like Prosper Organics, use 100 pc organic ingredients which are easy to understand.




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