Press Release: New cosmetic regulation to strengthen product safety and to cut red tape

On 5 February, 2008, the European Commission proposed to simplify the European law on cosmetics and: 27 transposing national pieces of legislation representing over 3500 pages of legal text is to be replaced by one single regulation. The EU Cosmetics Directive from 1976 had become a 'patchwork' of 55 amendments without coherent terminology. This proposal aimed to strengthen product safety while reducing costs for businesses. For example, requirements for product safety assessments were clarified and simplified notification rules for new cosmetics cut administrative costs for enterprises by 50%. The existing provisions on the ban and phasing-out of animal-tests for cosmetic products by 2009/2013 remained untouched.