Some boring legal stuff today, but absolutely essential and unavoidable
If you want to sell any cosmetics in the UK (or EU) you need a Cosmetic Product Safety Report from a professional chemist. Providers can easily be found on the internet. As this is a legal requirement there is no point quibbling, even though they may seem ridiculous in some cases (e.g. my make-up remover is, literally, sunflower oil and witch hazel in a bottle. What could possibly go wrong?)
CPSRs are costly, so make sure you have tried and tested your recipe and are happy with it. You can also buy CPSRs for pre-formulated recipes from various companies, who will also then sell you the ingredients. These are often cheaper. But I am focussing on CPSR for your own recipes.
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You can have CPSRs for a single product. |
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You also can have CPSRs for a product (e.g. body butter or soap) with a number of variations. The basic recipe has to be the same for all of them but you can vary the scent and colour. Again, you will have to stick to your recipe, once you have done it, so make sure you are happy with it. |
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The most flexible CPSR you can get is often (not surprisingly) called a Flexi CPSR. Not all providers do these. Again, you will not be able to vary your basic recipe. However, instead of having a fixed amount of scent or colourant, you will be able to add those up to a specified percentage. Usually this is 5% for colour and 3% of scent in soap. |
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The beauty of the Flexible CPSR is that you can mix the colours or scents as long as you don’t exceed the specified percentage. For example, I mix turmeric (yellow) and woad (blue) to make greens. Different amounts of each achieve different greens, light or dark. As long as the total amount is not 5% of product you can vary your colour. You can also blend several essential oils, as long as the total amount is lower than your allowed percentage of scent. This very useful for my Picture Soaps as I know the colours don’t exceed the maximum percentage but I do not know the exact amount.
The Flexi CPSR are the most expensive, but, if like me, you have plans to create a variety of themed items, or maybe a colour range (e.g. light pink lipstick to dark red lipstick), it is worth the money.
Watch out: there are another type of flexi CPSR, which are pre-formulated. They are way cheaper, so have a look, but it’s not what you want if you are creating your own recipes.
I am only aware of one company providing Flexi CPSRs currently: MAF Cosmetic.
Another company I have used and am very happy with is: Cosmetic Safety Solutions LTD They can be very fast.
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