Cosmetic company in trouble for marketing claims
June 28, 2009 by Jo · Leave a Comment
L’Oreal is being taken to the Market Court in Sweden for making claims that the Consumer Ombudsman says they cannot substantiate. As the name suggests the Marketing Court deals expressly with cases concerned with marketing.
The job of the Consumer Ombudsman is to protect the interests of the consumer and represent them in court against companies. In this case the ombudsman is not satisfied that the claims of L’Oreal that their product being able to reduce wrinkles by 43% is backed by sufficient evidence to support this marketing claim.
Consumers Stockholm an association representing the interests of the consumer in Sweden, has backed the action saying that the cosmetics market needs to held accountable to the rules and regulations that are in place to protect the consumer. They also called for funding to ensure that cosmetic companies are reviewed and held accountable for any marketing claims they may make.
There has been a number of cases worldwide over the last year that have seen cosmetic companies called to task for marketing claims about what their products can do. Fanciful claims that are unsubstantiated or backed by pseudo research combined with airbrushing in advertisements has become a normal practice for many cosmetic companies and serve only to mislead the consumer.
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Hypoallergenic – what does it mean?
June 25, 2009 by Jo · Leave a Comment
Many cosmetic and skin care companies claim that their products are hypoallergenic.
Just what does this mean?
Hypoallergenic can mean just about whatever a cosmetic company can claim for it to be.The term is not regulated by any authority in Australia and in the United States.
Literally it means hypo – meaning low and allergenic as in is likely to cause an allergic reaction. Therefore when we see this term on a product we make the assumption that the product is not going to cause an allergic reaction and is therefore free of irritating ingredients.
The consumer needs to look further at the list of ingredients in the skin care products they are choosing to buy and not making an automatic assumption that the product they are buying is not free of any irritating ingredients. This is articulary important for those with sensitive skins or those people who have an ingredient they suspect can cause them problems.
Unfortunately there are products on the market that are not deserving of the hypoallergenic label.
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Nanoparticles – are they safe?
June 22, 2009 by Jo · 1 Comment
Nanoparticles and their safety has been a hot topic of conversation since the question of their safety was raised. Nanoparticles were marketed by skin care and cosmetic companies as being the latest and greatest development in skin care as the particles were smaller than conventional size particles and therefore able to penetrate the skin. By penetrating the skin the nanoparticles could supposedly then have a greater effect on improving the skin.
Now their very ablity to do so has made their safety questionable.
The Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) that is a forum of the EU and United States consumer organisations, has called for the two countries to work together to establish sound guidelines to both assess and protect the consumer form any risks that are not found in using products with conventional size particles.
They also want to testing methods, technologies and mandatory reporting schemes to adequately assess and keep track of those products containing nanoparticles. Clear labelling would also be required so the customer has full knowledge that the product they are buying contains nanoparticles.
Companies that make marketing claims about products containing nano particles should also be held to account and these both be verifiable and substaniated by an independant source.
The TACD also was aware of the effect of the economic effects on companies that have nanoparticles in their products and that this should be further investigated.
It seems it would be prudent to avoid skin care and cosmetics with nanoparticles until the evidence of their safety has clearly established.
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Slow progress on animal testing ban
June 19, 2009 by Jo · Leave a Comment
SLOW PROGRESS ON ALTERNATIVES TO ANIMAL TESTING
Animal testing is due to be completely banned in the EU by 2013. Too far away for those of us who support an immediate ban on all animal testing in skin care and cosmetics.
For those who will have the ban enforced upon them there have been problems in finding safe and effective alternatives. In the areas of sensitisation and irritation progress has been easier than areas such as cancer and reproductive toxicity the search for an alternative has been and looks like continuing to move slowly.
The EU commissioner for consumer affairs Meglena Kuneva has stated
” I therefore hope that more efforts will be invested in this area, including from the cosmetics industry, in order to accelerate the new development of scientific concepts and techniques such as Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships in order to comply with given deadlines in 2009 and 2013.”
The EU has signed a co-operation agreement with Canada, Japan and the United States to promote the fast tracking of finding alternative methods to animal testing. This combined approach can only be of help in ensuring the 2013 deadline is met.
In the interim I guess we can support those companies that don’t test their products on animals.
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