A Closer Look at the Personal Care Products Council
As we have established in other blogs, the FDA has very little influence over the commonly used chemicals in beauty products. Instead, the cosmetics industry officially relies on an expert panel at the Chemical Ingredient Review (CIR) for regulating what goes into your beauty care products and onto your skin. When you look further into the CIR, however, you will find a second organization – the Personal Care Products Council – and here is where you will undoubtedly form some interesting questions.
The Personal Care Products Council is a massive conglomeration of cosmetics giants, from Avon to L’Oreal (full member list here). A recent interview with the CEO of the Personal Care Products Council revealed that the CIR is financially controlled by The Personal Care Products Council. Not only does the Personal Care Products Council constantly supply the CIR with office equipment for testing, but according to the CEO, they also pay for “administrative staff and other operational expenses”.
Both organizations are non-profit, and therefore are exempt from disclosing public figures. As such, one cannot verify how much money is actually spent on testing – only a fraction of their actual proceeds could be going towards research, and the rest on who-knows-what. Wouldn’t it be easier to instead rely on non-toxic beauty products brands, which require no testing?
When it comes to regulating chemicals in beauty products, there are bureaucracies within bureaucracies. The CIR, like the FDA, does not review all cosmetics ingredients. For example, instead of regulating fragrance ingredients by themselves, they rely on a third organization, the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials (RIFM), which has its own review panel. Coincidentally, Avon and L’Oreal are both members. The scary part is that all of the bureaucracies determining what can go into beauty products are owned, financed or otherwise beholden to the beauty product companies. Not a single one of them are independent organizations concerned only about you, the consumer.
You won’t want to miss our next series of groundbreaking blogs that will rock the cosmetics industry to its very core. In the meantime, drop a comment and keep choosing only non-toxic beauty products brands.