Roadmap to Becoming a Cosmetic Product Safety Assessor – Milestone 1

Roadmap to Becoming a Cosmetic Product Safety Assessor – Milestone 1  

By Dr. Annelie Struessmann, President, CCE        

On 27 May 2020, the first sequence of safety assessment courses will commence. Cosmetics Consultants Europe (CCE)* and the RWTH International Academy** developed this training program, which in a first step will instruct participants how to diligently perform a safety assessment for cosmetic products according to Annex 1 of the EU’s Cosmetics Product Regulation 1223/2009.

All courses of this module will be provided online; as such allowing world-wide participation even within existing sanctions under COVID-19. Upon successful termination of the program, an Academic Certificate will be issued by CCE & the RWTH International Academy. Later, the course will be extended to a format of Safety Assessment in Regulatory Affairs leading upon completion to a RWTH Master Degree.

There were three key incentives for the two partners, CCE & the RWTH International Academy joining their forces for the creation of this training:

• To provide the experience from practical performance of safety assessments to students, while at the same time profound education at an academic level is delivering the science foundation.
• To base safety assessment and the Cosmetic Product Safety Report on a pan-European experience and performance level, as such standardizing the approaches in the various EU Member States and for world-wide safety assessor students.
• To provide the training on-line in order to be transparent and accessible to the world-wide stakeholders. Additionally, the online training approach allows to flexibly adding training chapters at any time upon recognition of the need by and for the participants.

The training is a conceptional roadmap to safety assessment consisting of six modules, each with four webinars and a full day of practical student/trainer interaction. Everybody can join the training; knowing about different educational pre-conditions of the students it was created as a toolbox where every module can be booked individually. Each module will be terminated with a test and a module certificate will be issued. Yet, the safety assessor qualification certificate will be awarded only upon successful completion of all modules.

The first milestone to be completed is the training module, which commences on 27. May 2020. In four webinars the regulatory environment of cosmetics and the building blocks of product formulations will be addressed:

Regulation (EC) 1223/2009 on Safety Assessment

• Principles of Safety Assessment
• The Scientific Committee for Consumer Safety – Notes of Guidance
• The dual Approach towards Ingredients’ Safety
• Substances regulated in the Annexes

Cosmetics’ and horizontal legislation

• Annex I – CPSR Information Requirements
• Specifics for Fragrances
• Raw Materials, Ingredients
• Ingredient Descriptors (INCI, EC, etc.)

The in-depth practical approach to safety assessment will be achieved in a full day of student/trainer interaction on the following topics:

• How to do a raw material safety assessment – data collection, data research, impurity status, documentation
• Evaluation what is good, necessary, supporting information
• Cosmetic manufacturing: Where hazards may appear.

Cosmetics safety assessment is a complex exercise involving interdisciplinary scientific approaches in the fields of toxicology, chemistry, pharmacology, biology/life sciences, as well as product and packaging technology and regulatory affairs. All areas will be addressed during the training program, and it will also stimulate and demand to be complemented by the active engagement of the participants.

 
*Cosmetics Consultants Europe (CCE) is a pan-European industry association uniting consultant working in the cosmetics, cosmetic ingredients and borderline industries – www.ccecosmetic.org

**RWTH International Academy is the academy for continuing education of the German excellence university in, the RWTH Aachen University – www.cpsr-education.com/