EU confirms ban on musk xylene

Vincent Gallon

24 February 2011

The European Commission has announced the ban of six substances “of very high concern" under the REACH regulation, including musk xylene. However, this fragrance ingredient had been already withdrawn by the industry.

Bioaccumulative pollutant

The European Commission has just announced its decision to move musk xylene [1] from the candidate list to the authorisation list, known as Annex IV, under the REACH regulation. [2] This means it will be phased out since substances in Annex XIV cannot be placed on the market or used unless authorisation has been granted for a specific use.

Musk xylene is a fragrance material that once ranked among the most widely used synthetic musks in the perfumery industry before declining in the early 1990s.

As a very persistent and very bioaccumulative pollutant in the aquatic environment, musk xylene was the first substance to be proposed as a "substance of very high concern" under the REACH regulation.

The Commission also announced the ban of five other substances: 4,4’-diaminodiphenylmethane (MDA), hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD), bis(2-ethylexyl) phthalate (DEHP), benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP) and dibutyl phthalate (DBP). “These substances are carcinogenic, toxic for reproduction or persist in the environment and accumulate in living organisms. Operators wishing to sell or use these substances will need to demonstrate that the required safety measures have been taken to adequately control the risks, or that the benefits for the economy and society outweigh the risks,” the Commission explains in a release.

The six substances will be phased out within the next three to five years.

Already banned by IFRA

However, the move to Annex IV should hardly have any impact on the fragrance industry since the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) had already voluntarily withdrawn musk xylene from perfumes’ formulas through the fragrance industry’s global self-regulation programme.

"We have always taken our responsibilities for safety very seriously and once again our self-regulatory approach has proved to be more up to date with current scientific knowledge, faster to implement and cheaper for industry and consumers,” said Pierre Sivac, IFRA President.

Actually, IFRA banned musk xylene in June 2009 [3], based on risk assessments carried out by an independent Expert Panel [4] that deemed the substance had potential effects on the environment. According to IFRA, its membership accounts for approximately 90% of the global volume of fragrance materials.

Footnotes

[1] IUPAC name: 5-tert-Butyl-2,4,6-trinitro-meta-xylene

[2] Regulation No 1907/2006 for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals

[3] IFRA 44th Amendment to the Code of Practice in June 2009

[4] IFRA’s Expert Panel is made up of renowned independent experts, from fields such as dermatology, toxicology, pathology or environmental sciences. Their role is to evaluate the data on a fragrance to see if it supports the current use level, to make sure that there is no risk for the consumer or the environment.