IMPORTANT REGULATION FOR SAFETY OF PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS

MUCH NEEDED REGULATORY PROVISION FOR SAFETY OF CONSUMERS - PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS SAFETY ACT 2015

In a timely initiative, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Susan Collins have introduced regulatory provisions under proposed Personal Care Products Safety Act for the safety of consumers. Consumer and health advocates are concerned about the use and concentration of some chemicals in personal care products, and Herbally Radiant has been highlighting the need to address this issue.

For example, ill effects from use of ingredients like formaldehyde and propyl paraben have been recorded in many studies. FDA would evaluate five ingredients every year to determine their safety, and would issue guidelines for their restricted use, or exclusion from the products.

The first set of chemicals for review includes:

• Diazolidinyl urea (used as a preservative in a wide range of products including deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, bubble bath and lotion)
• Lead acetate (used as a color additive in hair dyes)
• Methylene glycol/formaldehyde (used in hair treatments)
• Propyl paraben (used as a preservative in a wide range of products including shampoo, conditioner and lotion)
• Quaternium-15 (used as a preservative in a wide range of products including shampoo, shaving cream, skin creams and cleansers)

The Personal Care Products Safety Act would also:

• Provide the FDA the authority to order recalls of certain personal care products that threaten consumer safety.
• Provide the FDA the authority to require labeling of products that include ingredients not appropriate for children and those that should be professionally administered. Complete label information, including ingredients and product warnings, would also be required to be posted online since approximately 40 percent of personal care products are purchased over the Internet.
• Require companies to provide contact information on their products for consumers and report serious adverse events to the FDA within 15 days, including death, hospitalization and disfigurement. Health effects that could have resulted in hospitalization without early intervention would also be required to be reported.
• Require manufacturers to register annually with the FDA and provide the agency with information on the ingredients used in their personal care products.
• Direct the FDA to issue regulations on Good Manufacturing Practices for personal care products.

To fund these new oversight activities, the bill would authorize the FDA to collect user-fees from personal care products manufacturers similar to what is done for medications and medical devices.

This is reported to be the first attempt in 75 years, to introduce regulatory mechanism for safe and effective personal care products. Europe has already in place a robust mechanism to prevent potentially risky ingredients being used in cosmetics.

Herbally Radiant uses USDA certified natural healthy ingredients properly labelled on each product. Its anti-aging and anti-acne range, viz., Rejuvenating-Radiant and Clean, are the safest and most effective products in the market, with excellent customer reviews. It therefore underlines the need for other brands also to label ingredients on each product so that consumers are able to make informed choice for the right product, and FDA can ensure necessary control.