New chemical labelling legislation expected to let cosmetics off lightly

At the end of January the EU enforced a new regulation that aligns European legislation to the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS).

Companies dealing with chemicals will now have to reclassify substances by November 30, 2010 and mixtures by May 31, 2015.

Burden not expected be great​

However, CONUSBAT technical director Dr Annelie Struessmann told CosmeticsDesign.com that beauty manufacturers and ingredients suppliers are not expected to shoulder a much heavier administrative workload because of the new legislation.

Struessmann said: “I do not foresee a burden for the manufacturers of cosmetic consumer goods, as they do not provide material safety data sheets (MSDSs) for their products and, per Cosmetics Directive, do not handle dangerous goods.​

“The manufacturers of ingredients will be affected, but to a lesser degree compared to industries where the chemical or preparations handled have higher hazard potentials.”​

Shares same basic philosophy as existing legislation​

She said the new legislation, being primarily a self-classification system, also has the same basic philosophy as the existing EU regulation. Hazardous chemicals are identified and users are informed of their presence by standard symbols and phrases.

Nonetheless, Struessmann said increased admin work lies in store for companies that regularly handle hazardous chemicals.

She said: “Although not yet completely familiar, I foresee quite some time to fulfill numerous requirements towards modification of hazard criteria, classification processes, label elements and SDS adaptations and elements of the GHS.”​

The EU integrated GHS within its process of introducing REACH but the registration provisions for REACH went into effect while GHS was still going through stakeholder consultations and assessment processes.

Published in December last year, the legislation is called REGULATION (EC) No 1272/2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP).