Personal Care Products Council: Resisting Regulation

The Personal Care Product’s Council (PCPC) was founded in 1894 (as the Cosmetics Toiletry and Fragrance Association or CTFA) and is the leading trade association for the personal care products industry, representing the companies with the most sales of personal care products in the U.S.¹ One of their stated aims is to protect “the freedom of the industry to compete in a fair and responsible marketplace”¹ The association also claim to be committed to ensuring that cosmetic products are safe for consumers, “accomplished by promoting voluntary industry self-regulation.”¹ Over the years the CTFA has strongly opposed attempts to overturn self-regulation and re-iterated the argument that cosmetics are safe, the industry’s voluntary programs work and the FDA has sufficient authority to take action.²

The PCPC’s history is characterised by numerous attempts to hamper regulatory measures. For instance, in 1973, Missouri Senator Thomas F Eagleton proposed a bill that, along with other measures, repealed the soap exemption, required pre-market clearance and testing of cosmetics by the FDA and allowed increased FDA access to company records. The PCPC argued that the FDA had adequate authority to protect the public health and was already exercising this authority.

In April 1974, House Heath Subcomittee Chairman Paul Rogers introduced cosmetic legislation proposing pre-market substantiation of cosmetic safety, ingredient labelling, repeal of the coal tar hair dye and soap exemptions³ and other conditions, to no avail.
Again in 1975 Senator Eagleton introduced legislation, but despite FDA Acting Commissioner Gardner praising the bill as striking a “reasonable balance between controlling risks and imposing inappropriate burdens on Government and industry,” no hearings were held or action taken on it.³ It was around this period that the PCPC set up the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) consisting of a seven member scientific panel to assess the safety of cosmetic ingredients. Somewhat of a smokescreen the CIR is funded by the Personal Care Products Council and the FDA is not legally obliged to enforce regulations based on its conclusions.

In 1978 the General Accounting Office (GAO) compiled a list of 101 suspected carcinogens, 24 suspected teratogens and twenty substances suspected of nervous system toxicity that are used in cosmetic products and Commissioner Donald Kennedy of the FDA testified that cosmetic products should be substantiated for safety prior to being placed on the market. As a result of all the commotion surrounding cosmetics legislation the FDA enlisted a graduate intern to assess the FDA’s authority and efficacy in the regulation of cosmetic products. In December 1978 a draft report was made public but a final version was never released.³

Various other attempts to increase the FDA’s authority were considered in the 1980s and 1990s, but it was eventually concluded that existing cosmetic products had not presented serious health threats and the PCPC were implementing adequate self-regulation measures.

When Proposition 65 was introduced in California in 1986, requiring that manufacturers prove that their product ingredients contained no significant risks of causing cancer or reproductive toxicity, the PCPC petitioned the state to get an exemption for cosmetics and they are still attempting to trigger reform of the bill.

In 2005 the PCPC provided assistance when a San Francisco lawsuit was brought against the industry due to the lack of a warning about the presence of lead in cosmetic products. Marc Pritchard, the PCPC Chairman, has referred to the recently introduced Safe Cosmetics Act in Calfornia, as ‘anti-cosmetics’ legislation, and suggested that the PCPC can do the right thing, “by making people’s lives better through beauty,”¹ and being ready to “aggressively respond to our opponents when necessary and appropriate.”¹ It is acknowledge by the PCPC that the final version of the California Safe Cosmetics Act was watered down due to their sustained efforts and they continue to try, in their own words, to “mitigate its impact.”¹

In 2005, the PCPC worked to prevent the more strict regulations planned in California for volatile organic compound (VOC) content of consumer products, being introduced into the states of New Hampshire, Virginia and New Jersey. They have also worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to try and make the standards more workable for the industry.

Perhaps the PCPC was feeling a tad uneasy about all the negative publicity surrounding cosmetic products because, also in 2005, the CTFA made a point of hiring several new lobbying and public relations staffers, and in 2006 gave the VIP treatment to Congressional Members at its “Fragrance Day” event on Capitol Hill.^4,5 They have now adopted their own Consumer Commitment Code and given themselves an image overhaul rebranded the association as The Personal Care Products Council. Stacey Malkan, co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of the book, Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry suggests that its efforts “fall short of what’s needed for true cosmetics safety…because it’s really not much more than what [industry] is already doing.”⁶

Diane Farsetta Ph.D., Senior Researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy says,

“Given that these are very minor changes to the current system, it’s fair to ask whether the code’s real goal – or, at least, its effective outcome – might be to promote cosmetic products and companies as compliant, under a system defined by and for the industry itself.”⁴

Ironically, given the concerns that have arisen about the safety of certain cosmetic constituents and the issues surrounding women’s psychological dependency on cosmetic products, aided and abetted by the industry, in 1989 the PCPC launched the Look Good…Feel Better Program (LGFB), funded by the cosmetic industry, allegedly to “help women cancer patients overcome the appearance-related side effects resulting from chemotherapy and radiation, thereby helping to improve their self-esteem.”² One of the campaign advertisements says, “Look Good…Feel Better, the latest cancer treatments aren’t always prescribed by doctors,”⁷ but apparently they are ‘prescribed’ by the cosmetics industry, which produces products containing numerous chemicals linked to cancer.

^{1) CTFA (Cosmetic Toiletry, and Fragrance Association), 2005 Annual Report.
2) Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association (CTFA), CTFA History, http://www.ctfa.org/Content/NavigationMenu/About_CTFA/History/History_5.htm.
3) Estrin NF (Ed), Akerson J (Ed), Cosmetic Regulation in a Competitive Environment, Basel:Marcel Dekker, 2000, p27.
4) Farsetta D., ‘Cosmetic Solutions: The Makeup Industry Gives Itself a Health Hazard Makeover,’ Centre for Media and Democracy, PRWatch.org, July 14, 2006; online at: www.prwatch.org.
5) Personal Care Products Council, CTFA to Host Fragrance Day on Capitol Hill, May 29 2006, http://www.personalcarecouncil.org/Template.cfm?template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=3902.
6) Nelson, R., ‘Campaign for Safe Cosmetics Unimpressed by CTFA Consumer Commitments,’ The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, March 19, 2007; online at: www.safecosmetics.org.
7) Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association (CTFA), News, Issue 17, Volume 107, October 22, 2007.}