Do you know what this symbol means? Have you even noticed it before? You will find it on most, but not all, of the personal care products in your bathroom. Continue reading
Period After Opening Symbol
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Category Archives: Legislation
What You Should Know About Licensed Products
I was born right just when the drug thalidomide was being prescribed for morning sickness. This has always made me feel particular empathy towards those people who were born with defects caused by that drug. I have run into a few of them over the years, and of course they are always about my age so it makes it very easy to imagine what my life would have been like had the luck of the draw turned out slightly differently. Continue reading
DMDM Hydantoin
Should cosmetics be as safe as what you eat?
I have seen people commenting online that they want cosmetics safe enough to eat. Well they have pretty much got their wish. Not many cosmetics would suit the palates of ladies or gentleman of fine and delicate taste, but with the possible exception of underarm deodorants tucking into your personal care products is going to do you no actual harm in either the long term or the short term.
But the idea that what is safe to put on your skin can be inferred from what it is safe to eat isn’t a very good guide to action. I can think of things I would not want on my skin that I am sure would be harmless to eat. There is one very good example that is quite memorable. A lot of snake venoms will kill you if they get directly into your blood stream but can be swallowed without any harm at all. I am pretty sure that I was taught at school that Queen Eleanor sucked the poison from the wound when a snake bit Edward I, saving his life. Sadly, when I researched it for this post it turned out not to be true. But the biology is still correct even if the history isn’t. Continue reading
The Apprentice BBC1 15th April 2009 – Making and Marketing Beauty Products
My ears pricked up when I heard that the next episode of the Apprentice would involve developing and marketing a range of beauty products. I am a big fan of this programme anyway, but the subject matter made this one that was not to be missed.
Beauty products aren’t like new cars or operating systems, but nonetheless you can’t develop them in a day so I was intrigued as to how they were going to go about it. In the event they found a friendly cosmetic company, easily identifiable to those in the business, to offer up some bases that could be fragranced with essential oils. This was quite a neat way of making a programme for the telly but does leave the most interesting bit of the whole process out. So all the competitors had to come up with was an essential oil blend to make the product smell nice, a suitable colour, a ‘natural ingredient’ to give it a marketing story and to design a label. It was not too different to the real process really – including the problems that routinely come up in product development.
EU Ban on Animal Testing of Cosmetic Ingredients comes into force today
Today there have been some celebrations in London to mark the end of testing of cosmetics on animals in the EU.
Lots of people have opinions about animal testing of cosmetic ingredients – there was a time when I got asked about nothing else when I told people what I did for a living.
ASA feels Procter and Gamble’s Collar
Some viewers, including a doctor, complained about Olay Regenerist’s TV adverts. This product is one of many that use pentapeptides as anti-wrinkle agents. Another well known one is the famous Boots Serum that had women clearing the shelves in the stores a few years back.