The day the new Cosmetic Regulation came into force

Nothing had changed, it was business as usual. Or was it? From talking to colleagues across the industry, there has been a real split between those making something of a mad scramble to hit the deadline and be fully compliant, those who are continuing to hastily work towards compliance but are not quite there yet, and those that are, dare I say it, a little indifferent towards the whole thing and carrying on as usual!

Views of individuals from within the industry

Chrysalis, as a company, tend to sit between manufacturers and marketers and deal with people involved in all elements of the supply chain and across the entire NPD process, so it has been interesting over the past few months to listen to the views and plans of different individuals and organisations. I wanted to gauge and share the views of people in different roles across the industry to get a feel for the overall mood. Firstly I spoke to Andy Juj of Jasan Cosmetic Laboratories,2 developers and contract manufacturers of a wide range of personal care products. Andy gave me his thoughts on life after 11 July 2013: “We have had a real mixture of responses to the new Regulation. Many of our clients are small marketing companies, and the response from some is there is no way they can afford to comply as required, it will put them out of business.” Andy explained that, like us, he has received a lot of requests to explain and run through the new regulations with clients. He gave a comment that also echoed my own experience of talking to companies of all different sizes in that despite the challenges, on the whole they “want to ensure they are doing everything to comply.” Andy’s closing comment both made me smile and rang true in that some people believed we (service-based organisations in the industry) have “…devised the new regulations so as to extract more money from them.” If only. Undoubtedly, those made busiest by the new Regulation have been toxicologists who across the board have been inundated with requests for assistance in order to comply, typically at the last minute. To be fair, I include myself in that as I have been on the phone to safety assessors rather a lot in the last few months trying to assist some of our clients get over the line, just in the nick of time. I was interested to get the views of a toxicologist immediately after the 11 July date had passed to get a fresh perspective on just how busy things had been, views on compliance on the whole and what is likely to happen next. Edmund Fowles of EF Chemical Consulting3 kindly agreed to give me his views on the subject. “Our main business at EF Chemical Consulting is the provision of cosmetic safety reports to small- and medium-sized businesses. Most safety assessments for products on the market are not compliant to Annex I of EC1223/2009 so it’s been a major part of the total expense and resource for many businesses in conforming to the new Regulation,” Edmund said. On the response of companies, and the last minute nature of requests, Edmund added: “We have been taken aback by how late companies have been preparing for the new Regulation with the majority not starting the process until the beginning of 2013. In a sense this is understandable since brand owners have often only recently decided which products will continue in production past 11 July. We had major brands submitting their products to us for CPSRs on 10 July. The result has been a massive increase in workload for us such that we had to close our doors to new customers on 1 June but we are hoping things will get back to normal sometime in the Autumn.” As well as ensuring quality and compliance, one of the main aims of the new regulation was of course to educate brands about just how important it is to generate sufficient data before launching products into the marketplace. From Edmund’s comments, this whole process does appear to be having the right effect in this respect. “It’s been a big learning curve for many of our customers: their Product Information Files have been incomplete; many products currently on the market have so far not had preservative challenge tests done and this has added a lot of extra cost and delays into the process; many perfumes have not had up-to-date IFRA certificates and the perfume houses themselves have been inundated with requests, which has also added to delays. Importers and companies relying on overseas contract manufacturers have found it particularly difficult and slow to get all the required information, with the overseas manufacturers often not understanding the requirements of the new EU Regulation and in some cases unwilling to reveal the full recipes and raw material suppliers.” I asked Edmund for his views on rates of compliance and he added: “In our experience, many companies, large and small, are so far not compliant but hopefully over the next 12 months everything will settle down and companies will now be a lot more knowledgeable and be better prepared for future product launches.” A reoccurring comment I received from colleagues across Europe was regarding the slowness of the Portal (CPNP)4 itself, or indeed an inability to get it to work at all just prior to the deadline. Was this really a surprise to anyone that the CPNP was overloaded in the days leading up to 11 July? It must have been like trying to log onto the Euromillions Lottery website 5 minutes after the draw has been made – no chance!