Cosmetic Industry Wins One in Colorado

The personal cae industry won the latest showdown with legislators, this time in Colorado. In a bipartisan vote, the House Judiciary Committee of the Colorado House of Representatives voted down (7-4) a personal care products protection bill, according to executives at the Washington-based Personal Care Products Council, which had vigorously opposed the measure as unworkable and draconian.

Despite the win, Council executives remain cautious, noting that the industry still face many legislative hurdles.

“I don’t expect this to change the environment in a wholesale way,” said John Hurson, executive vice president of government affairs at the Council. “But it may start the process of getting policy makers to focus on the science more so than in the past.”

He noted the bill originally banned in total the most minute trace quantities of elements thought to be carcinogenic or endocrine disrupters, even if the product was proven safe. These miniscule quantities tended to end up in the product as a result of the manufacturing process or were harbored in ingredients used in the formula. Just before the vote, the language was changed to allow trace elements permitted by the European Union, Hurson said, adding that the change sowed confusion and the bill’s defeat.