Regulatory & Safety Assessment of Cosmetic Packaging in Europe, Including Recycled Materials

Packaging is a fundamental consideration during the design and manufacture of any cosmetic product. The Cosmetic Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 supported by the recommendations of Cosmetics Europe sets forth essential regulatory requirements to address the safety of packaging when used for cosmetic products.

According to the cosmetic Regulation No (EC) 1223/2009, “a cosmetic product made available on the market shall be safe for human health when used under normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use” (3rd article).

Regulatory and Safety Solutions

The human health impact from migration of chemical substances from the packaging material into the formulation must be considered.  Our team of qualified toxicologists, pharmacists and regulatory experts are here to help. We can review packaging material and design a suitable analytical testing and safety assessment plan with the objective to meet the important safety requirements of the regulation. Intertek offers different solutions to assess the safety and compliance of cosmetic packaging:

1. First, our experts review the regulatory documentation provided by the packaging supplier, in accordance with the Packaging Advisory Document (Cosmetics Europe, 2019).
2. In case of any identified gaps, our experts can provide an adequate analytical strategy to conduct on the material.  This approach is notably recommended for recycled packaging intended to be used for cosmetic purposes. In collaboration with our internal analytical laboratories, we can conduct migration testing using relevant simulants for cosmetic use, in order to identify leachables migrating into the formula. Each leachable is then assessed based on the exposure of the final cosmetic product.

Analytical Solutions

Intertek provides analytical solutions that can meet both the requirements of the cosmetic regulation and your specifications for quality, safety and efficiency:

• Adapting well-established food contact material test methods to suit the evaluation of cosmetic packaging. This includes performing overall and specific migration, phthalates testing by GC-MS, PAH migration according to AfPS standards and heavy metals migration by ICP, using relevant solvent/simulant.
• Characterization of the migration from (recycled) cosmetic packaging, using a combination of GC-MS and LC-MS techniques to detect and quantify any packaging ingredients and Non-Intentionally Added Substances (NIAS) that could have formed during production or recycling processes.

Related Services

Cosmetics
Cosmetics Testing Services
Packaging Services
Environmental Control of Material Used in Cosmetic Packaging