As part of its market surveillance activities, the Agency tested 99 skincare creams available in Sweden, mostly products manufactured in Scandinavia. The products were submitted to laboratory testing, in particular for assessing their compliance with the rules applying to the use of preservatives. In its Report on the supervision system of cosmetic and hygiene products [1], Läkemedelsverket points out numerous non-compliances, regarding both undeclared preservatives and erroneous information on labels.
Undeclared preservatives
The analyses revealed that 20 products contained one or more preservatives that were not declared in the list of ingredients. According the Swedish Agency, one reason is that manufacturers are sometimes ignorant of the presence of these preservatives in the ingredients they use. Yet, full knowledge of the product formulation falls within the scope of responsibility of marketers, warns Läkemedelsverket. “However, none of the tested products showed microbiological hazards, which is yet a satisfactory result,” said Monica Tammela, head of the cosmetic and hygiene products unit.
Inaccurate labelling
Results regarding labels controls are even more catastrophic since 76 non-compliant products were detected out of 99 tested! These problems concern inaccuracies or errors in the labelling of business names or addresses, errors regarding the quantity of product claimed, the durability after opening, but also errors about the warnings or precautions of use, the batch numbers or the list of ingredients.
An example of INCI ingredients listing for cosmetics
Following these controls, some companies have decided to stop the sale of certain non-complying products. Furthermore, the Agency has also decided to prohibit the sale of products where important problems were identified or where the concerned company were not able to produce the necessary corrective actions.
The detailed report is available here below (in Swedish):
