Abstract:

The use of cosmetics has a long history. Nowadays, cosmetics have become one of the most common consumer products in people’s lives. However, from the perspective of per capita consumption level of cosmetics, China’s per capita consumption still lags behind developed countries. With the development of economy, improvement of people’s consumption level and the change of consumption consciousness, cosmetics industry has a broader development space. The production of cosmetics is a sunrise industry in economic development. Different from drugs, cosmetics mainly play the role of beautifying and embellishing life. Safety is the basic feature for cosmetics, and the efficacy of the products follows. Enterprises should put product safety in the first place in the progress of researching and developing cosmetics. China’s current regulations divide cosmetics into special cosmetics and ordinary cosmetics. Special cosmetics include hair dyeing cosmetics, perm cosmetics, skin bleaching and skin whitening cosmetics, sunscreen cosmetics and anti-hair loss cosmetics, as well as the cosmetics that claim new effects. Compared with ordinary cosmetics （such as cosmetics that claim to have cleansing or moisturizing effects）, special cosmetics have a higher risk to the consumers. Cosmetics are managed according to the risk degree in China. Special cosmetics are subject to registration management, and for ordinary cosmetics, record management are carried out. In China, the cosmetics safety evaluation department plays an important technical support role in the product safety review process. The safety technical evaluation for cosmetics is a key step in China’s cosmetics supervision system. Among the system, the evaluation for special cosmetics safety is the main part. Under the new framework of “Regulations on Supervision and Administration of Cosmetics”, higher requirements are put forward for cosmetic registrants and record holders, especially in quality management system, adverse reaction monitoring and evaluation, etc. Cosmetic applicants and technical evaluators should strengthen their studies, and pay more attention to the issues that affect safety in application details. Based on the practical experience of cosmetic safety technical evaluation, the author summarized, sorted out and analyzed issues affecting safety of special cosmetics according to specific cases, which can provide reference for cosmetic product research and development, regulatory agencies and technical institutions to carry out related work.

Key words: special cosmetics, safety technical evaluation, case study