The cosmetics, perfume and personal hygiene sector is becoming increasingly globalised and so as a result the need for common standards and practices, relevant to the industry, its suppliers and its customers is becoming increasingly important.
The International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) is the global body coordinating and publishing this kind of professional advice. Unusually for an international organisation, its remit is entirely to assist the performance of businesses, industries and professions for whom it issues guidance. There is no other agenda here - maybe forcing a sector to adopt environmental or liberal free market policies against its will. Indeed, relevant industry members are always closely involved in drawing up standards, which are designed to encourage companies to work according to best practice and in similar ways, helping cooperation, trade and distribution.
This work is coordinated by ISO technical committees and there are two of particular relevance for the personal care sector: technical committee TC 217 on cosmetics and TC 54 on essential oils.
TC 217 has a relatively restricted range of standards, certainly compared with some other committees, which in some cases have already generated hundreds of good practice blueprints. For the cosmetics committee, there are just seven standards. All but one cover cosmetics manufacturers' work involving microbiology: general instructions for microbiological examination; enumeration and detection of aerobic mesophilic bacteria; detection of E coli, pseudomonas aeruginosa and staphylococcus aureus contaminants. The other standard is ISO 22715:2006 on cosmetics packaging and labelling. A new standard under discussion is ISO/FDIS 22715 assessing the efficacy of sun protection products and their sun protection.
As for other future standards, the best guide is the topics covered by the technical committee's seven sub-committees: microbiological standards (which has already been busy); packaging and labelling; nitrosamines; terminology; good manufacturing practice; and sun protection tests.
The committee has developed a business plan. It stresses that the “most important benefits expected from the work of ISO/TC 217 are improving the quality and safety of the products and access [to] the cosmetic global market”. And it makes clear that it will cover a wide range of personal care products in the future: fragrance; decorative cosmetics; skin and hair care; and toiletries.
The business plan also outlines potential problems for its standard designers. One is possible gold-plated cosmetics health regulations, for instance in the EU, which cold pose a risk to the relevance of an ISO standard if its guidelines are more permissive than compulsory rules laid down by the EU. Another problem is definitions; “Products might be considered as cosmetics in one area, and as pharmaceuticals in the other”, says the business plan. However, many ISO standard families include guidelines on sector-specific definitions, so such a standard may in the future be drafted for the personal care sector. One particular issue of concern as regards definitions is SPF numbering systems for sun protection products, which vary widely around the world. An ISO cosmetics conference has concluded that “needs rapidly addressing”, to help consumers choose adequate protection and facilitate international trade in sun care products.
Another key technical committee, TC 54 on essential oils, has already produced many more standards - 124 to be precise. This committee has no sub-committees, but its work has been detailed nonetheless. First, it has approved a series of standards that can be used by the manufacturers, storers, transporters and retailers of all essential oils. These include general rules for packaging, conditioning and storage; labelling and marking of containers; sampling; determination of relative density at 20C; and others. Then there are many specific standards detailing good practice for making and handling specific essential oils, such as peppermint, lemon, rosemary, spearmint, bay, grapefruit, sweet orange, clove buds, aniseed, lavender, lemongrass, sandalwood, lime, cedarwood and many other varieties.
This committee too has a business plan. It says: “Due to globalisation of the market, standards become more and more important to facilitate world trade”. A key issue here, says the plan, is the shift in production towards developing and emerging market countries, while control and consumption happens in richer countries, making international guidelines and models all the more important to guarantee consumer safety and ease trade. Existing standards have, says the plan, “helped determine which oils are mostly used in the cosmetic and the perfume world, and to fix some quality levels for them”. It adds that new technologies have also increased demand for good practice models that keep on top of the latest scientific developments.
Of course, ISO is not just about detailed sector-specific standards. It also has generic management standards that can be used by any industry, service and sector - public or private. Many innovative organisations have long used the ISO 9000 quality management standards to improve their performance and another key series of standards here are the ISO14000 environmental management systems, designed to help organisations of all types to improve their environmental performance, while boosting their business results.
So there is plenty of advice available at ISO, but sadly for the cosmetics industry, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and as ISO is not funded by taxpayers, it charges for copies of its standards. These don't come cheap, sometimes running into hundreds of Swiss Francs, but they are usually at least affordable to medium-sized companies. Standards can usually be ordered through national standards organisations allied to ISO, and can be bought in hard copy or digital downloadable format from ISO's detailed website, all major credit cards accepted. Using ISO standard codes is an effective way to find relevant documents, when searching on the site.