There have been a lot of insults thrown back and forth since then.

Highlights:
“The bill creates the “Colorado Safe Personal Care Products Act”
which prohibits a manufacturer from knowingly selling, offering for
sale, or distributing for sale or use in Colorado on and after September 1,
2011, any personal care product that contains a chemical identified as causing
cancer or reproductive toxicity.”

One would think this is a positive! The problem is, the jury is still out on
what ingredients are actually a concern when it comes to cancer. Personally…I
rather see a ban on cigarettes then worrry about cosmetics…but that won’t
happen.

“The bill further establishes a process for identifying those
chemicals that cannot be contained in personal care products sold or
distributed in Colorado by recognizing existing lists of harmful chemicals
established by authoritative bodies such as the United States environmental
protection agency, the international agency for research on cancer, the national
toxicology program, and the national institute for occupational safety and
health.”

This is where I get confused. What I am reading from “leaders” in this industry
has turned into a vicious attack on the Campaign For Safe Cosmetics, the Skin
Deep database, and the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Why?

I read the bill and unless there is something I am completely missing…they
were NOT the organizations who introduced this bill.

The bill references the EU standards, which Robert Tisserand addressed
beautifully on his blog.

I looked all over the EWG website and I don’t see anything about them even
taking a stand on the Colorado Safe Personal Care Products Act.

Where is there any documentation that the EWG is involved in trying to promote
save cosmetics through the Colorado bill?

I posted on Donna Maria’s blog:
http://www.indiebusinessblog.com/2010/03/04/small-business-owners-embrace-your-l\
egislative-advocacy-power

dM, you know how much I respect you so I hope you take my critique as well
intentioned. In an earlier post on your blog you state “provisions should be
made to support businesses, particularly small businesses, in meeting federal
regulations for safer products.” And I agree.

The first step should be to educate and inform those small businesses of exactly
what those federal regulations actually are.You state that “I know that some
large manufacturers with billions of dollars in annual sales and millions of
customers worldwide are using questionable ingredients in their products. This
is a problem that the newly introduced FDA Globalization Act of 2009: HR-759
should address. However, and this is important, it is not the small, artisan,
Indie and handmade companies that are using these unsafe ingredients and
therefore, any new law must be carefully tailored to ensure that small companies
are not regulated in the same way that larger ones are.”

The reality is, your statement that the small, artisan, Indie and handmade
companies are not using these exact same ingredients is not accurate. Spend some
time on some of the social networkings sites where people are sharing advice and
recipes. The small, artisan formulators are buying and using the exact same
chemicals found in the products made by the large formulators. These ingredients
include the very synthetic preservatives many large corporations are actually
phasing out due to consumer concern.

What potentially makes the large manufacturers products potentially even safer
than the small manufacturers; testing! The FDA has requirements for microbial
pathogens, ask the average small crafter and I guarantee…too many have no idea
what those requirements are and they have no idea whether or not their products
fall within the safe levels. These tests are not prohibitively expensive and
there is no legitimate excuse for selling products that have never been tested
for pathogens. Being a formuator is a profession, and like most professions
there are costs for doing business. I feel like some of your comments are
empowering people to take shortcuts, and not spend money on the basic things
that should be part of even the smallest home formulator’s costs of doing
business.

If the safety of a product has not been established, the FDA requires a
statement of such on the label…the size of the manufacturers business does not
exempt the small manufacturer from at the very least, displaying this mandatory
statement on the label. But you can go to any farmers market, ETSY store or
online shop and purchase products manufacturered by small, artisan, Indie and
handmade companies that are untested, and missing this notice. And worst of
all…the manufacturer doesn’t even realize it is required.

Another thing the large manufacturers do is conduct a Minimum Inhibitory
Concentration Test (MIC Test). If you do not run a MIC test, then the
manufacturer is just guessing whether or not their preservative is working. Too
often, the small crafter asks advice of other small crafters in online social
networking sites, and then adds the maximum amount of synthetic preservative to
their product. This does not necessarily create a safely preserved product, but
it makes the crafter feel as if their product “must” be safe. In many cases,
this exposes their customers to many more potentially toxic ingredients than
necessary. Again, these tests are not prohibitively expensive. Wishful thinking
should have no part in manufacturing a product that customers are applying to
the largest organ of the body, the skin. In my opinion, if a small business
cannot afford to test their products in order to use the least amount of
preservative necessary, then they should consider another profession.

You have stated “But companies that are using safe ingredients should not be
required to test for ingredients that they know they are not using in the first
place.” I can only say that after reading posts from thousands of small,
artisan, Indie and handmade cosmetics makers…not only do many of them not know
what ingredients are in their products, they have no incentive to learn. People
find a soap recipe, buy the ingredients, and in two weeks are selling their
“eczema relief” soap, their “all-natural essential oil of strawberry scented”
lotion, etc. The battle…and it is a battle…for safer cosmetics should not
include a free pass for a company simply because of it’s size.
+++
Why…seriously, why should small businesses be given a free pass based on size?