MARIE MAGNAN
Regulatory Affairs Manager, COSMED, France

Abstract

Cosmetic claims in European Union must conform to two regulations and a technical document. Indeed, the cosmetic industry has the responsibility to communicate on truthful, honest and verifiable claims.
The responsible person has a lot to check before approving the wording of claims and general appearance of the product.

This article details the definitions, the common criteria on cosmetic claims and the recent changes on free from claims. New trends on cosmetic claims will be analyzed in the last part.

INTRODUCTION

Cosmetic claims are strictly regulated in Europe but a great part is let to the interpretation and control of the responsible person. Therefore, the latter has to understand the requirements set by the regulations in order to apply them correctly.

The Regulation (EC) 1223/2009 on cosmetic products was published in 2009 and has entered into force on 11 July 2013. During the transition period (between 2009 and 2013), a specific regulation on claims has been drafted. This Regulation (EU) 655/2013, written to set up common criteria justifying the use of claims, has been published and is applicable since July 2013.

It has been then completed by recommendations, defined by the Cosmetics working group of the European Commission: Technical Document on Cosmetic Claims (last version published on 3 July 2017).

RESPONSIBILITIES AND DEFINITIONS OF CLAIMS

The definition of a claim is given by both the European regulation on cosmetics and the regulation on common criteria. These two texts define claims as text, names, trademarks, pictures and figurative or other signs (…) irrespective of th ...