Key takeaways on Cosmetics Europe’s key issues for 2026
- The Chemicals Omnibus is a major 2026 priority, aiming to prevent unnecessary automatic bans on safe cosmetic ingredients.
- Cosmetics Europe is challenging errors in the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive impact assessment, which could unfairly burden the sector.
- Regulatory changes across chemicals, wastewater and broader EU policy will influence ingredient availability, innovation and compliance.
- Brands and formulators are advised to track EU legislative developments closely to safeguard product portfolios and future planning.
To learn more about some of the key issues on the table for the beauty and personal care industry in Europe in 2026, we spoke to John Chave, who is Director‑General at cosmetics industry trade body Cosmetics Europe.
Cosmetics Design Europe (CDE): Hi John, what were some of the main issues for Cosmetics Europe in 2025 that are still likely to impact the industry this year?
John Chave (JC): The Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive was a major topic for us in 2025. Then the two other defining themes were the trade situation – including the imposition of tariffs on the European Union, in which cosmetics was implicated – and the European Commission’s commitment to raising the profile of EU industrial competitiveness and addressing unnecessary regulatory burden.
CDE: What’s on the agenda for Cosmetics Europe – and therefore of great importance to the industry – in 2026?
JC: One area of importance is the Chemicals Omnibus, which addresses the automatic banning of substances following classification under the CLP Regulation. This proposal was launched in 2025 and is continuing into 2026.
One of our key priorities in 2026 will be finding a way forward on the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive that respects the polluter pays principle, as well as supporting the Chemicals Omnibus in its originally proposed form.
The aim of the proposal is to ensure that safe substances and safe products can remain on the market. Under the current system, substances can be automatically banned even when they are safe in cosmetic use scenarios. This proposal would not diminish consumer protection in any way but would take exposure and real‑world use into account.
The Member States have pushed back on parts of the proposal, the European Parliament will also have its view, and there will be negotiations between the institutions. We strongly support this measure and are very clear that it must not dilute consumer protection, which remains our ultimate priority.
There are several substances commonly used in cosmetics – or critical to certain categories – that could be affected by classification, such as ethanol, or sodium fluoride, which is essential for oral care products. There is also a significant pipeline of fragrance ingredients that could potentially be automatically banned.
While it is possible to seek derogations from bans, the criteria are extremely rigid and not well aligned with consumer safety considerations, and the timelines are often unrealistic. The Chemicals Omnibus seeks to address these issues by making derogations more workable where safety is clearly established under the Cosmetics Products Regulation.
The key concept here is simplification. This is at the heart of the omnibuses – not deregulation or reduced consumer or environmental protection – but ensuring legislation is not unnecessarily complex or burdensome.
CDE: You mentioned the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. What’s the latest news on this?
JC: Cosmetics Europe made a Freedom of Information request to the European Commission asking it to disclose the basis of the substance analysis it used to determine that cosmetics supposedly contributed to 26% of water pollution.
It was through this information – received from the Commission itself – that the organisation found substances had been attributed to the cosmetics industry that were either banned from cosmetics formulations under the EU’s own regulations or were not actually cosmetic ingredients. Based on these errors, the Commission has assumed that the cosmetics sector’s contribution is around 15 times higher than it really is. (It was estimated to contribute to 26% of water pollution, when really this figure is 2%.)
One of these substances was permethrin, which is a biocide used, for example, to kill fleas on dogs. There were also substances more commonly found in food such as fatty acids, yet the Commission continues to insist, despite our having pointed out these manifest errors, that the impact assessment is correct. You need to look at the definition of a cosmetic under EU legislation to determine whether this is the case, and clearly a biocide is not a cosmetic.
By misattributing substances to the cosmetics sector, under the terms of the extended producer responsibility scheme in the directive, our sector will be obliged to pay for micropollutants emitted by other sectors. This is clearly not aligned with the “polluter pays” principle.
I want to stress to readers of Cosmetics Design that we are not opposed to the overall objectives of the directive, and we are not opposed to the EPR scheme, we simply think that it should be based on the polluter pays principle, and currently it is emphatically not.
If you attribute substances to our industry that we do not put into wastewater, that cannot, by any reasonable measure, be considered fair.
The Commission takes the view that the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries together are responsible for most micropollutants. They even state that without those two industries it would not be necessary to introduce the scheme, whereas our calculation – based on the Commission’s own figures – is that the cosmetics industry’s contribution is less than 2%. We cannot realistically move forward if we are being asked to pay for the emissions of other sectors.
If industries that emit micropollutants into wastewater are not being asked to pay, they have no incentive to stop. Even on its own terms, the current structure of the EPR does not make sense.
CDE: Given this big focus on changing regulations for beauty and personal care companies in the EU, what advice do you have for beauty and personal care brands going forward?
JC: My advice to companies is always the same: keep a close eye on what is happening in Europe. These regulatory processes are highly impactful for anyone using cosmetic ingredients. Our industry depends on a wide palette of ingredients for innovation and functionality, and without changes such as those proposed in the Chemicals Omnibus, defending that ingredient palette becomes increasingly difficult.
These issues – urban wastewater, chemicals regulation, and broader EU policy developments – will affect all of us in the sector.