On Thursday May 14th, the Assembly Bill 2762 passed out of the State Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials. Authored by Assembly man Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) a co-sponsored by Assembly Members Bill Quirk (D-Hayward) and Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), the bill would ban 12 chemicals from being used in cosmetics in California.
“This bill, which passed in a bipartisan vote 7-0, will now go to the Appropriations Committee,” announced Assemblyman Muratsuchi on Twitter.
Today I presented my AB 2762 - the Toxic- Free Cosmetics Act - to the ESTM Committee. This bill, which passed in a bipartisan vote 7-0, will now go to the Appropriations Committee. Women deserve to know that their personal care products and cosmetics are toxic-free.
— Asm. Al Muratsuchi (@AsmMuratsuchi) May 14, 2020
If adopted, the Act would ban 12 chemicals from cosmetics, including Dibutyl phthalate, diethylhexyl phthalate, formaldehyde, isobutylparaben, isopropylparaben, long chain PFAS chemicals, methylene glycol, mercury, paraformaldehyde, phenylenediamine, and quaternium-15. All these ingredients are already banned in the European Union and other regions.
It will be possible to add new ingredients to this list when they have been identified after a stakeholder process and provided that they listed as a banned substance in Annex II of Regulation No. 1223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council or in any updates to that Annex.
“Women deserve to know that their personal care products and cosmetics are toxic-free,” commented California Assembly Man Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) after the bill passed out of the State Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials
The Personal Care Products Council (PCPC), the most important national trade association representing the cosmetic and personal care products industry in the US, praised the move. “We are proud to have joined a broad coalition, including the Black Women for Wellness, Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, CalPIRG and the Environmental Working Group, in supporting well-crafted, science-based reforms like AB 2762. Such legislation modernizes California’s cosmetics regulation and also strengthens consumer confidence in the products they trust and enjoy every day," said the organization in a statement.
A better alignment of cosmetics laws in the U.S. with the E.U. regulations has long been a key demand of consumer advocacy groups such as Environmental Working Group (EWG), Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, or Black Women for Wellness. Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, Black Women for Wellness
“Today’s vote to ban 12 ingredients from cosmetics is just the first step in the legislative process. But this vote is an important milestone in the history of cosmetics regulation. For the first time, groups like EWG and the industry’s trade association, the Personal Care Products Council, support legislation to modernize the rules governing these everyday products. Industry and consumer advocates agree that ingredients like formaldehyde and mercury have no place in cosmetics and other personal care products. This is good news for consumers, who should not have to worry about the presence of these chemicals, and good news for cosmetics companies, which benefit from greater harmony among global rules,” said EWG President Ken Cook.
