Campaign for Safe Cosmetics announces deadline for compliance and lauds success of Compact pledge.
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics
January 27, 2011
Contact: Stacy Malkan, stacy@safecosmetics.org
Stephanie Hendricks, stephdh@earthlink.net
San Francisco– The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics announced today that it will sunset the “Compact for Safe Cosmetics” and publish in summer 2011 the list of companies that are fully compliant with the voluntary product-safety and transparency pledge. The Compact, which has been signed by more than 1,500 cosmetics companies since 2004, calls for full disclosure of ingredients in personal care products and avoidance of chemicals known to cause cancer, reproductive harm and other health problems.
“We are proud that so far 250 companies have fulfilled all the promises of the Compact and hundreds more are close to compliance. We will be working with all of the Compact-signing companies in the months ahead to help many more achieve that goal,” said Lisa Archer, national coordinator of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national coalition of health and environmental groups working to eliminate harmful chemicals in cosmetics.
“This summer, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics will honor companies for their efforts to reach compliance with the Compact, and we are developing a post-Compact plan to engage with companies that are committed to raising the bar with regard to safety,” said Archer. Companies’ progress and compliance is also tracked in Skin Deep, the Environmental Working Group’s product-safety database at www.cosmeticdatabase.org.
Archer explained that the decision to sunset the Compact is a way to reward the companies that have achieved compliance and to transition to new ways of engaging with the broader health and beauty community.
“In absence of any real government regulation, the Compact has played an important role in shifting this industry toward safer cosmetics and giving consumers information they need to find healthier products for their families,” said Archer. “The Compact has also yielded significant relationships between environmental health advocates and businesses, and together we have shown the world that making safer products and fully disclosing ingredients is both possible and the wave of the future.”
Archer noted that consumer demand for natural, non-toxic personal care products has increased steadily over the past six years since the inception of the Compact and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ efforts to educate the public. Consumer demand in this category continues to grow faster than demand for conventional products.
“We have learned a lot in this process, and we are proud to be working with a large and robust community of businesses that are committed to making the safest personal care products possible. We plan to strengthen these alliances even further in the future.”
Companies seeking more information about the transition are invited to visit our FAQ at www.safecosmetics.org/CompactFAQ or e-mail compact@safecosmetics.org.
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The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is a coalition of more than 150 nonprofit organizations working to protect the health of consumers and workers by eliminating dangerous chemicals from cosmetics. Core members include Clean Water Action, the Breast Cancer Fund, Commonweal, Environmental Working Group, Friends of the Earth and Women’s Voices for the Earth. The Breast Cancer Fund, a national 501(c)(3) organization focused on preventing breast cancer by identifying and eliminating the environmental links to the disease, serves as the national coordinator for the Campaign.
