SIMON MORAN1, DANIELLE O’CONNOR2, RUKHSAR VALIMAHOMED3
Group Quality and Regulatory Lead, Cornelius Group, Herts, United Kingdom
Regulatory Specialist, Cornelius Group, Herts, United Kingdom
Regulatory Executive, Cornelius Group, Herts, United Kingdom

Abstract

The quality and regulatory landscape is an ever-changing but exceptionally important backdrop to the chemical industry. As it shifts in accordance with customer needs, safety information is altering at a rapid pace. In recent years, that shift has largely been driven by a new agenda: sustainability. Consequentially, regulators in the personal care sector are looking to impose new and tighter environmental regulations on the industry to reduce hazardous chemicals, whilst retaining high performance standards.
This article will delve into the challenges, both unique and universal, faced in the personal care industry, the methods that are being implemented to smooth the regulatory transition moving forward, and how these are mirroring those already seen in the performance chemicals sector.

The quality and regulatory (Q&R) landscape is an ever-changing but exceptionally important backdrop to the chemical industry. It continues to shift in accordance with customer needs and new safety information. In recent years, that shift has largely been driven by a new agenda: sustainability. And as a result, regulators are looking to impose new and tighter environmental regulations on the industry to reduce hazardous chemicals, whilst retaining high performance standards. Access to the now vast collections of data available have influenced this, with the evolving market demand of increased transparency for consumers spotlighting any change.

DRAWING UPON INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
The performance chemicals industry has seen regulatory changes to the use of carcinogenic methyl ethyl ketone oxime (MEKO) anti-skinning agents and cobalt materials in paint and coatings formulations. As of March 1st 2022, paint products containing MEKO at ≥ 0.1% cannot be sold to the general public and are considered a restricted substance under REACH (1). Therefore, paint manufacturers have been required to reclassify and relabel these paints to ensure the ...