Care to Beauty is localized in Europe, which means that all our products have to comply with the EU Regulations regarding cosmetics. These regulations have many different aspects to them, from the formula to animal testing and even the packaging itself, and our products have to abide by all of them, otherwise, they will be pulled out from the market. And why is this relevant? Because we know that our customers sometimes search for products with specific characteristics and it’s important for us to guarantee that you feel safe when buying from our website.
“Free from parabens”
Products sold in the EU will now be prohibited from stating on their packaging that they are free from parabens. This has been stated on a technical document called “Technical document on cosmetic claims Agreed by the Sub-Working Group on Claims (version of 3 July 2017)” that is now being enforced by every EU country’s responsible entity and should be complete by the mid of 2019.
Why is this so? The document states that the “free from” claims cannot be used when they imply a denigrating message, which is considered to be the case with the few authorized parabens. Since parabens have been under scrutiny for the past few years, and a few of them have been considered totally safe for use, stating that one product is free from parabens is implying that the product is of superior quality because of that, which is not the case. Some people might not get along with them and others prefer to still avoid them altogether, but they are still safe to be used in formulas.
How can you make sure your product doesn’t contain parabens?
On our product descriptions, we always try to make sure we state that the product doesn’t contain a few ingredients that people usually try to avoid and ask us about. Parabens and fragrance are some of the examples, as we know some of our customers like to avoid them.
When you receive your product at home, the new packagings will have the claim “free from parabens” removed, but the formula will still remain the same. Not stating that it is paraben-free doesn’t mean at all that the product now contains parabens. You can check this by yourself by consulting the Ingredients list (INCI list) that is always present on the outer packaging of the product. There you will find a myriad of strange names, but luckily parabens are very easy to spot, as all of them have “paraben” on the name. Here are some examples: methylparaben, ethylparaben, butylparaben, and propylparaben. As you can see, all of them end in paraben, which makes it super easy for you to find out if a product contains parabens by just looking at that apparently scary list of strange names.
Paraben safety
The EU regulating entities keep investigating the safety of ingredients and have been on top of the worries and troubles that involve some of the ingredients used. For parabens, the Scientific Committee on Consumers Safety (SCCS/1348/10) has considered that methylparaben, ethylparaben, butylparaben, and propylparaben, as well as their related iso compounds and benzylparaben, were safe to use as long as the concentrations are lesser than the maximum authorized for each one of them.
This means that you should only avoid these ingredients if you have any history of parabens intolerance or if you believe that it’s best to avoid them – it doesn’t mean that they are unsafe or that you should avoid using them. Parabens have been intensely studied for safety, so don’t worry about safety even if your product contains them – they are amazing preservative ingredients that ensure that the formula is microorganism-free and doesn’t spoil so fast.
