The multi-billion dollar US cosmetics industry is booming. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates cosmetics in the United States, reports through its data dashboard that over 2.7 million cosmetic line-items entered US ports in Fiscal Year (FY) 2018.
However, this immense volume of cosmetic imports poses certain challenges as current regulations and resources limit what the Agency can do to effectively prevent potentially harmful cosmetics from entering US distribution.
FDA was only able to examine 5,403 (less than 1%) cosmetic line-items in FY 2018. 784 (14.5%) of the examined lines were refused entry into the US because they were found to violate regulations. It is probable that, in the unexamined shipments, many non-compliant and potentially harmful products evaded enforcement and made their way to shelves.
Meanwhile, domestically-produced goods, which are not subject to any screening before entering the market, present a different issue. In April 2018, fraudsters in Los Angeles were discovered marketing feces-laced makeup kits using the brand name of celebrity Kylie Jenner’s cosmetics line. The incident caused Jenner’s sister Kourtney Kardashian to lobby with US legislators for stricter cosmetics regulations.
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