Much like other ‘vegan’ products, a vegan cosmetic product, too, does not contain any kind of ingredients derived from or related to animals, including lanolin, collagen, honey, beeswax, albumen, gelatine, carmine, cholesterol, etc. The Vegan Society also recommends avoiding animal-based ingredients like pearl, cochineal (E120), silk, snail gel, milk protein, tallow, unless specified as made from synthetic origin.
At times, the cruelty-free factor is also a part of this product in the sense that it is free from animal testing as well. However, since the FDA has not given any standard definition for the term ‘vegan’, vegan cosmetics are not regulated, and hence, such cosmetics usually abide by the rule to not using any kind of animal ingredients.
However, you should keep in mind that those products that have been tested on animals can also claim to be “vegan”. Hence, what you buy as ‘vegan’ product from the market is not necessarily cruelty-free.
Again, no legal restriction or regulation has been endowed on a commercial product that has been labelled as ‘vegan’. Hence, it is necessary for you to check the credentials of any brand you are looking for, if you are actually opting for vegan cosmetics. However, the easiest way to make sure that a product is vegan is to look for the logo of the Vegan Society, while for cruelty-free products, it is necessary to look for the Leaping Bunny logo.
When it comes to beauty products, we often find the word ‘natural cosmetic’ imprinted, though we do not always try to understand what is the meaning of the term ‘natural’ it.
Furthermore, the FDA didn’t yet define the word ‘natural’ in the term ‘natural cosmetics’. However, on 5 November, 2019, Sean Patrick Maloney, Congressional representative (NY-18), had introduced the landmark Natural Cosmetics Act in Washington with an aim to give legal definitions to the terms ‘natural’ and ‘naturally-derived ingredient’ that are often used in cosmetic products related to personal care.
The bill defines that the cosmetic products that are commercially sold, bearing the label or represented to be “natural” must contain a minimum of 70% “natural substances, excluding water”, to use the term about the products in question.
For maintaining accountability, the proposed bill requires cosmetics suppliers to go through Carbon-14 testing that needs to be submitted to the manufacturers. The bill will also give independent power to the Food and Drug Administration authority to issue cease distribution orders when necessary, as also, publish public notice on their website, and recall the authority of any of such products that would be deemed misbranded under this act.
The FD&C Act declares a cosmetic as ‘adulterated’ under several conditions and circumstances. In order to understand the term ‘Adulterated Cosmetic’, we need to understand the legal definition of the ‘adulteration’ present in it, in the first place. Cosmetics are said to be adulterated if they contain adulterants like some heavy metals including mercury, or certain substances that have been listed as ‘Scheduled Poison’, viz. hydroquinone, tretinoin, steroids, antibiotics, etc.
The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act [21 USCS § 331] has provided the definition of the term distinctly. It refers to those cosmetics that “contain any poisonous or harmful substance which may render it injurious to users. Adulterated cosmetic contains ingredients which may cause skin irritation on certain individuals”.
The law has also prohibited adulterated cosmetics to be transported in interstate commerce.
