Acid Green 25
Posted by Colin Sanders on
Colours are popular with consumers, but seem to get legislators a bit worked up. It is almost as if the different governments have got together to make the naming systems and regulations as impenetrable as possible. I came across a good example of that today.
An american product had Green 5 listed on the pack. Was this permitted in Europe? So the first question is what do we call Green 5 over here? Well hopefully they were using the FDA approved Green 5. That is what most cosmetic companies would be using. There is a Solvent Green 5 which has been used in stage makeup, but lets make our lives easier and disregard that possibility.
The EU name for the commonly used one is Acid Green 25. There is no ambiguity there, both have the CAS number 4403-90-1. So that is fine. A quick referral to Annex IV of the new cosmetic regulations and there it is. It is listed as approved with no restrictions. So that it is alright.
So on the face of it there is no problem using Acid Green 25 in cosmetic products in Europe. But if you check on the CosIng database online, it says that it does have a restriction. Click through the link and you find a 2005 SCCP opinion about it.
This opinion restricts its scope to the dye's use in hair dyes. It doesn't find any problem with the use of this per se, but there is a shortage of some data. So in the conclusion they well, fail to come to a conclusion. I suppose that this means that the dye is not approved for use in hair dyes. I don't have much experience working with hair dyes so I have no idea what problems if any all this poses. I hope somebody somewhere has generated the necessary data and that the committee can finally reach some kind of closure on the matter.
http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/04_sccp/docs/sccp_o_009.pdf