EU enforces ban on animal testing of cosmetics

CosmeticsDesign.com reports that yesterday, March 11, legislation came into effect introducing a total ban on animal testing of cosmetics and cosmetic ingredients throughout Europe.

The legislation, the Seventh Amendment of the European Cosmetics Directive, makes illegal the testing of cosmetic ingredients on animals for skin irritancy, phototoxicity, corrosivity, percutaneous absorption, genotoxicity, ocular irritancy and acute toxicity.

The ban on animal testing of cosmetic ingredients will be completed in 2013 when another eight tests are added: carcinogenicity, photoallergy, cutaneous allergy, toxicokinetics, reprotoxicity, teratogenesis, toxicity – sub chronic and chronic, and photomutagenesis.

Another website, Naturewatch.org, reports that, unlike previous legislation, the Seventh Amendment to the Cosmetics Directive requires a total ban on the testing of cosmetics on animals from 2013, whether or not non-animal alternatives are available.

A marketing ban will also apply to products containing animal tested ingredients coming into the EU from elsewhere in the world, in cases where non-animal alternatives are available.

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