Building Consumer Confidence by Empowering FDA to Improve Cosmetic Safety

At Ology Essentials we aim to support small businesses. We felt it was important for our readers to know about the hearing that the House Energy and Commerce Committee has announced about updating cosmetics regulations at 10:00 AM eastern on Wednesday, December 4.  The hearing, entitled “Building Consumer Confidence by Empowering FDA to Improve Cosmetic Safety,” will be lead by the committee’s Health Subcommittee. If you manufacture any sort of personal care, topical, cosmetics, aromatherapy, hemp CBD, bath & body, or soap products the outcome of this hearing will impact you. We suggest following along and get involved by supporting the Coalition of Handcrafted Entrepreneurs.

The hearing will feature testimony by five witnesses, including Leigh O’Donnell, Executive Director of the Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetics Guild.  Other witnesses will include representatives from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Working Group, National Women’s Health Network, and Beautycounter.

You can watch the hearing via livestream by going to the Committee’s website.  To find more information prior to the hearing you can go to the committee’s website. For background on the House Committee’s approach to this hearing, you can read the background memo put out by the Committee’s Chairman, Representative Frank Pallone (NJ-6).

The hearing is one step in the long process that the Congress has undertaken over the course of many years to examine ways that it might update cosmetics regulations.  It is expected that Chairman Pallone will move to introduce and advance a bill regarding cosmetics regulations sometime soon after the hearing.

Your voice has been being heard as advocates of the Coalition of Handcrafted Entrepreneurs (COHE)  and the Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetics Guild (HSCG) have been actively engaged at all levels of legislative advocacy work for the last 10 years, working side by side to ensure that any potential regulation changes fit how the handcrafted soap and cosmetic industry looks today. COHE and HSCG have worked for over a decade to educate Members of Congress about handcrafted soap and cosmetics. They have shared with Members of Congress and their staff that handcrafted industry supports and makes safe cosmetics.

But our advocates need help, and that’s where you come in.  As owners and operators of your own handcrafted small business you are the expert on your products and why you started making them to sell, and, how you’re different than the average product at mass-market retailers across the country. Your real-life stories help to paint the important picture for our lawmakers about how fees, reporting requirements and paperwork will affect your business and your ability to make and sell products.

Now is a good time to engage your member of Congress and let them know that as they consider cosmetics legislation, that protecting the handcrafted industry should be front of mind.  If you want help finding your representative and resources for how to contact them, you can use this tool on the COHE website. If you are a member of Indie Business Network and/or the Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetics Guild you can join watch parties.

Ology Essentials is committed to cosmetic safety, education and transparency. Learn more about our mission here!