As calls for transparency in food production intensify, driven by figures such as RFK Jr. and the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, the cosmetics and personal care industry is preparing for similar scrutiny. States are already advancing restrictions on ingredients and packaging.
For example, California’s PFAS-Free Beauty Act (AB 2771) took effect on January 1, 2025, banning cosmetics and personal care products that contain intentionally added PFAS, following a similar ban implemented in Vermont last year.
Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington also have legislation taking effect this year or currently in progress to address PFAS in cosmetic products, creating a patchwork of compliance obligations across key markets.
At the federal level, oversight is also expanding. Under MoCRA, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must assess the use of PFAS in cosmetics and publish its findings by December 29, 2025. These developments coincide with a wave of state laws on packaging, including Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs such as SB 54 and recycled content mandates, which are reshaping material choices and exposing companies to new compliance and enforcement risks.
Against this backdrop, CosmeticsDesign U.S. spoke with Holland & Knight partners Rachel Gartner and Meaghan Colligan Hembree, who advise leading beauty and personal care manufacturers on FDA, environmental, and sustainability compliance.
Gartner has extensive experience providing strategic advice on food, dietary supplements, cosmetics, and other FDA-regulated products. She collaborates with companies at every step of the product development process to evaluate ingredients, formulations, and assess potential risks based on current and emerging FDA policy.
Hembree advises clients on complex regulatory compliance issues and disputes across the entire life cycle of chemicals, wastes, and products, including product stewardship, marketing, distribution, use, compliance, permitting, importation, contamination and spills management, and end-of-life management. She provides strategic, business-focused counsel to consumer product companies, including brands, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers involved in the cosmetics, apparel, textile, chemical, transportation, and food and beverage industries.
In this CDU Q&A, Gartner and Hembree discuss the converging risks facing the industry and the proactive steps companies can take to prepare for heightened regulatory attention.
CDU: What signs or patterns are you seeing that suggest a regulatory or advocacy spotlight is turning toward cosmetics and personal care products?
Rachel Gartner: The MAHA movement is empowered by the consumer’s desire for transparency. With this in mind, I think manufacturers of all consumer products, regardless of their regulatory classification, should be thinking about what that means for their business.
Consumers want access to information, including information about what’s in their products and how those products are made. We’ve seen a focus on food – ingestible products – things we put in our body. It would be prudent for companies that sell products we put on and around our bodies to be thinking about the scrutiny their products could face during this administration.
Meaghan Colligan Hembree: From an environmental and product stewardship perspective, I’m seeing regulators expand their focus on exposure pathways to the entire product lifecycle—including ingredient sourcing, manufacturing practices, marketing disclosures, and end-of-life packaging management. Consumers also want to understand the environmental and chemical exposure impacts of their products and packaging.
Integrating robust chemical compliance and ESG evaluation—to include ingredient, packaging, and carbon footprint assessments—positions companies to both meet regulatory expectations and authentically differentiate themselves in a crowded market. Collaboration between legal, sustainability, and product teams is increasingly essential to anticipate and address these overlapping areas of scrutiny.
CDU: Can you elaborate on what is meant by a “heightened ingredient risk” in this context? Are there particular ingredients or classes of ingredients that manufacturers should be paying especially close attention to at this time?
Rachel Gartner: Ingredients that have historical controversy or questionable safety data are at the greatest risk. Right now, we’re counseling clients to get a good handle on their product formulations and the safety data to support them.
It’s important to consider things like, how recent is the safety data? Have there been more recent studies that contradict the prior position?
Does the safety data align with the product’s use? And not just the way you market the product, the intended use, but the way you understand consumers are interacting with the product?
Meaghan Colligan Hembree: Complementing Rachel’s focus on safety data, I’d add that from an environmental and product stewardship perspective, regulators are zeroing in on ingredients in packaging and products associated with endocrine disruption, carcinogenicity, and environmental persistence—such as PFAS, phthalates, and certain plastics. These substances are increasingly subject to bans or reporting requirements under state, federal, and international environmental laws.
This means companies must not only audit their ingredient lists for safety, but also for compliance with evolving “banned” and “reportable” chemical lists. Staying ahead of these requirements is critical to avoid supply chain disruptions and regulatory penalties.
This dual approach—combining product safety and environmental stewardship—will help brands stay ahead of both regulatory and reputational risks.
CDU: When it comes to packaging, you’ve identified a growing tension between safety and sustainability. How are regulators and consumers currently evaluating this tradeoff, and what risks are companies facing if they don’t get ahead of the issue?
Meaghan Colligan Hembree: I am advising clients that packaging decisions now sit at the intersection of compliance, safety, and ESG strategy. With the rise of explicit chemical bans in packaging and products, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), and recycled content laws, brands must evaluate not just the recyclability and chemical content of packaging, but also the accuracy of sustainability claims.
Legal exposure can arise from misaligned or unsubstantiated claims, while reputational risk is heightened by consumer and investor scrutiny of greenwashing and the use of controversial materials. Proactive steps include conducting packaging material assessments, ensuring claims are substantiated with data, and integrating these considerations into broader ESG and compliance frameworks.
This holistic approach helps companies manage both regulatory and market expectations.
CDU: You’ve worked closely with companies on lifecycle compliance across ingredient sourcing, formulation, packaging, and labeling. Where are brands most vulnerable today from a legal or reputational standpoint?
Rachel Gartner: I work with a nice mix of large strategics and smaller start-ups. Both sides of the spectrum rely heavily on their co-manufacturing partners for sourcing, formulation development, manufacturing, etc.
My start-up clients are typically more vulnerable on the legal issues that come with those partnerships, because they don’t always have the past learnings or leverage at the negotiation table. However, my larger clients seem to have more risk from a reputational standpoint – there’s more to lose if their partner doesn’t do the right thing.
For this reason, amongst others, it’s critical to find good partners. Alongside the legal issues, we are often discussing items that present PR risk to the brand.
In this age of social media, my clients are positively and negatively impacted by things said on and across the various platforms. If good content gets picked up, it can be great for the brand. On the flipside, if bad content goes viral, it can be catastrophic.
There is an art to navigating these situations. I always recommend clients have a go-to PR team, whether it’s in-house or with a third-party agency.
Meaghan Colligan Hembree: On the environmental side of lifecycle compliance, I focus on how lifecycle compliance intersects with chemical bans, packaging requirements, and ESG and sustainability commitments. With the rapid expansion of chemical reporting laws—such as those requiring disclosure of intentionally added PFAS or other priority substances—a key vulnerability is the failure to identify and report the presence of newly regulated chemicals in products or packaging.
Additional vulnerabilities often arise when there’s a disconnect between what’s happening operationally—such as chemical management, waste handling, or packaging choices—and what’s being communicated to stakeholders. Missteps in chemical safety disclosures or inaccurate recyclability claims can trigger enforcement actions and negative publicity.
I work with clients to develop integrated compliance programs that address not only regulatory requirements (e.g., waste, permitting, chemical reporting) but also align with investor and consumer expectations for transparency and responsibility. This often involves cross-functional collaboration to ensure that legal, sustainability, and communications teams are aligned and prepared for evolving regulatory and reputational challenges.
CDU: What concrete steps can beauty and personal care product manufacturers take right now to strengthen transparency and reduce risk across their supply chains, particularly in light of potential future regulation or litigation?
Rachel Gartner: I’m encouraging clients to share the “why” behind their brands. By offering consumers education on the products, I hope they can start to appreciate the purpose behind the use of certain ingredients, packaging materials, etc.
Also, to get a good handle on the continued safe use of these items and develop strong positions as to why some things should remain unchanged, and in parallel, researching sufficient alternatives that might resonate better with the modern consumer.
Meaghan Colligan Hembree: I encourage clients to treat transparency as a core governance issue under ESG reporting — in addition to a consumer engagement tool. That means thoroughly documenting ingredient safety data, packaging materials, chemicals subject to current or anticipated bans, and environmental impacts to ensure claims are substantiated.
We are helping companies develop systems that enable clear, accurate reporting and integrate that data into their ESG frameworks. This kind of proactive compliance can help mitigate future litigation risk and build trust with both regulators and consumers.
CDU: Given the current momentum around transparency, sustainability, and consumer safety, do you believe the FDA or other federal agencies are likely to expand their enforcement focus on cosmetics in the near future? What kinds of changes might manufacturers expect if that happens?
Rachel Gartner: Yes. I think we’ll see action at the federal level from FDA, but also, at the state level - particularly in those consumer-focused jurisdictions.
We are likely to see similar proposed changes/bans to ingredients and packaging for cosmetic products as well. It would be prudent for manufacturers to start assessing their ingredients and the safety data to support the use in their current formulations.
Meaghan Colligan Hembree: In terms of the environmental and product stewardship side of things, enforcement focus will continue to grow, particularly around chemical ingredients and packaging compliance under laws like California’s Safer Consumer Products and the rising wave of EPR legislation. I expect to see a continued expansion of chemical-specific reporting requirements, warnings, bans, and mandatory reporting regimes at both the state and federal levels.
Manufacturers should prepare for more frequent updates to “prohibited” and “reportable” chemical lists, and for increased scrutiny of compliance with these requirements. Manufacturers should anticipate tighter regulations and prepare by conducting comprehensive risk assessments and aligning their products and packaging with evolving product, legal, and ESG standards.
