Brister i märkning och innehåll för kosmetiska produkter riktade åt barn

Sammanfattning: Children can be exposed to chemical substances by applying cosmetic products. Using cosmetic constitute a health risk when a cosmetic product contains toxic substances. There are today many different cosmetic products especially developed to be used by children. According to the rules stated by EU legislation 1223/2009, cosmetic products must be correctly labelled and must not to contain the forbidden substances that are mentioned in annex II. In 2016, a nationwide project in Sweden found that cosmetic products for children in many ways failed to comply with the legislation. The aim of this thesis is to study if the situation has improved compared to 2016. To achieve this aim, I have checked labeling and ingredients in cosmetic product for children in 10 stores in Lund. I found that out of 32 controlled cosmetic products for children, nine products contained at least one flaw. Five stores sold products containing labeling flaws and two stores offered two different products containing the forbidden substance vinyl acetate, pointed out by the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) as a carcinogen substance. The most common flaw detected was the absence of a Swedish translation of the products function description. According to the legislation the distributor is responsible to check that a products function description is translated into Swedish if written in another language on the product. This control point was the only one that had increased compared to 2016. Overall, the study shows that there has been a positive development in the detected flaws among products in stores compared to 2016. The products included in this study generally don’t indicate health risks for children, but since a few products may provide a risk there is a need to continue control and take actions to provide safer cosmetic products for children in the future.