The challenge of proving claims

Dr Gerd Mildau, Head of the Cosmetics Central Laboratory Chemical and Veterinary Investigation Office (CVUA):

In its testing report from January 2016, the product-testing organisation considered modern instrumental testing procedures as inadequate for proving the claim “visible effect within four weeks”. The advisory committee preferred a randomised half-head test with 30 women and blinded test samples against a standard moisturising cream for 4 weeks and an application twice daily as a suitable testing design. The documentation was done with the help of high esolution photos with standardised shooting conditions (before and after comparison).

Ökotest pursues a different strategy from the product testing organisation Stiftung Warentest. They do not test the anti-ageing efficacy, as they are convinced that there is no way of preventing the natural process of skin ageing. Even if there were products preventing skin-ageing, this influence on the dermis would not be in line with the definition of a cosmetic effect. Ökotest instead concentrates  on  analysing  whether  ingredients  comply  with  the  cosmetics regulations or if they are capable of producing undesirable effects. Allergy triggers, such as fragrance allergens,  formaldehyde,  Isothiazolinones,  parabens  (some  parabens can act as endocrine disruptors) and products with mineral  oils  are  increasingly banned.

First of all, she stressed that a high quality  anti-ageing  product  should take all factors that lead to skin ageing into consideration. After all, an increased  inflammation  process  of the  somatic  cells  (also  skin  cells) increasingly  damages  the  cells  and finally  leads  to  cellular  death.  Anti-ageing  products  should  have  a skin-firming,  wrinkle-reducing, moisturising, anti-irritant, and whitening  effect.  Some  day  care  products  should  also  protect  from  UV light. This means that a number of different  active  ingredients  have  to act within a suitable galenic formulation.  When  testing  the  quality  of such a product, all those aimed improvements should be tested instrumentally as well as by the subjective opinion  of  the  user. Modern  testing methods include  SELS  (Surface Evaluation  of  Living  Skin),  moisture measurement with the  help  of a Corneometre, measurement of the transepidermal water  loss  (TEWL) to test the barrier performance of the skin,  and  photos  to test  the  attractivity  as well  as measurements  of reddened skin or pigmentation with Chromametres.

She explained how a consumer advice centre works: market monitoring, consumer research, consumer advice, opinions on legal projects, public relations and class action in the case of unfair competition. It includes analysing undesirable cosmetic claims as well as deceptive packaging. The consumer advice centre uses warning letters for law enforcement. If a company does not issue a declaration of omission they are taken to court.

The cosmetics industry should have access to the ingredients suppliers’ study results, especially in the field of active ingredients. They should also have a contact here to tackle all questions involved with the effect of an ingredient. The scientific requirements concerning the substantiation of claims has become more concrete with the guidelines. Answers in terms of the transferability of study designs to the concrete product have to be available. The example of the anti-ageing test showed that the agreement between testing and claiming strategy was inadequate. The marketing department has to cooperate more closely with product development and safety assessment (as demonstrated in the case of caffeine). The case of “free from” claims shows clearly that markets can be created artificially thus hampering a target audience for high quality and safe products.

Interview with
Dr Gerd Mildau, Head of the Cosmetics
Central Laboratory, Chemical and Veterinary
Investigation Office (CVUA), Karlsruhe, Germany
www.cvua-karlsruhe.de