LIFESTYLE NEWS - For decades, federal regulations have let companies use the word 'fragrance' on soap, shampoo, skincare and other personal care product labels to hide the identity of multiple chemicals, many of them linked to allergies or other health effects.
This could dramatically change as industry giant Unilever announced a bold new initiative to provide detailed information on fragrance ingredients for all products in its multibillion-dollar portfolio of personal care brands, including Dove, Noxzema, Lever 2000 and NEXXUS.
It is an unprecedented leap toward transparency for a major company and a landmark win for consumers’ right to know, said EWG President and Co-Founder Ken Cook. EWG is the leading independent source of information on the health and safety of personal care products through its Skin Deep® cosmetics database.
“Unilever’s action is a game-changer for transparency in the personal care product market, and we expect other major companies to follow suit,” said Cook.
Unilever shared details of its market-changing new policy with EWG experts prior to its announcement. The transparency initiative will provide to customers:
This year, Unilever will start to voluntarily expand its product ingredient lists available through SmartLabel™ to include the fragrance ingredients in a product’s formulation above 0.01 percent (100 parts per million). Unilever aims to complete the SmartLabel™ updates by the end of 2018.
