Safety and health for our CONSUMER

The sector of manufacture and marketing of products dedicated to personal care and hygiene has undergone a very important and restrictive evolution in recent years, with the basic aim of guaranteeing the safety and therefore the health of the consumer.

Leaving aside all the legislative changes that have taken place in recent decades, we briefly summarize some fundamental stages:

• Law no. 713 of 1986 and its annexes, which defined the field of application of the cosmetic product and provided the first draft of the annexes which illustrated the details on the chemical categories of the ingredients and the limits or prohibitions in their use. This step was of extreme importance since until then there had been no clearly defined limits.
• EU Regulation no. 1223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on cosmetic products establishes the rules that every cosmetic product placed on the market must comply with in order to guarantee the correct functioning of the internal market and a high level of protection of human health.

On this last point we want to provide more details to clarify controversial positions that create distorted and confusing expectations.

Placing a COSMETIC product on the MARKET

The Product Information File (P.I.F.) must be created to place a cosmetic product on the market. The P.I.F. consists of a technical dossier grouping all the characteristics of the finished product and the studies carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness and safety of the product itself; the P.I.F. is divided into the following steps:

• Defining the Supervisor whose identity must be clearly printed on both primary packaging (bottle, jar, tube, etc.) and on secondary packaging (cases, bags, etc.). The Supervisor is the contact person who is involved by the Authorities of all categories both for health reasons and for simple checks. It is quite clear that the Supervisor – usually the manufacturer – must have the necessary skills to respond to any requests from the Authorities or in turn he/she must be able to manage the problem through an external consultant who interfaces with the manufacturer.

• The Supervisor must register the product to be placed on the market on a European CPNP portal (Cosmetic Products Notification Portal) at least 30 days before its placing on the market. Registration is carried out by communicating:
  • The name of the Supervisor;
  • Name of a Contact Person, i.e. a telephone number that can be contacted 24 hours a day in case of need;
  • The qualitative-quantitative formula of the product;
  • Possible presence of nanomaterials and CMR substances (carcinogenic, mutagenic and toxic for reproduction).
  • The layout of the packaging components (primary and secondary container).

These documents are intended to be able to quickly trace the Supervisor and view the ingredients to address any adverse reactions or damage suffered by the consumer during use of the product.

The Supervisor, after having notified what stated in paragraph no. 2 on the European portal, must perform:

• The Challenge Test to guarantee the suitability of the preservative system;
• The Safety Assessment, which consists of a report that produces a conclusion on the dermatological activity of the product through the data present in the Safety and Toxicological Data Sheets of each ingredient, their concentration and intended use.
• Furthermore, in order to carry out an appropriate safety assessment, it is recommended to provide supporting tests performed on human subjects, such as the Patch Test or Skin Irritation Test;
• proving the functionality of the product in relation to the boasted properties through effectiveness tests. Example of hydration test if hydration is boasted in the product claim.
• Keeping all the documentation relating to the ingredient sheets and the documents relating to paragraphs no.1 and no.2 available to the competent authorities for a period of ten years after the date on which the last batch of the product was placed on the market.

EYE CONTOUR AREA. What are we talking about?

About the absolutely most fascinating, complex area of ​​our face.

The eyes – actually, the entire eye contour area – express emotions and feelings, moods and thoughts. They talk about us. However, a critical aspect is where and how this happens.

The eye contour area, in fact, is very thin: only zero point five millimeters, compared to 1.7-2.5 millimeters of the rest of the face.

And more than a thousand blinks in twenty-four hours, in addition to the other infinite muscular contractions – both voluntary and involuntary – and the exposure to UV rays during the day, the rubbing against the pillow at night, the crying in front of love films and the sun on your face while driving, and the days spent in front of the PC, the maximum concentration in front of the smartphone and then the sleepless nights, because some worries or opportunities for fun are never missing.

In substance, THE CALLING CARD of our beauty and freshness

The area around the eyes is, in fact, the one that is most affected by our hasty, desperate lifestyle. And unfortunately it is also the first being affected by the passage of time, with changes that begin as early as the age of thirty – reduction in sebaceous secretion, decrease in muscle tone, sagging of the upper eyelid, loss of skin elasticity – and continue inexorably. Daily support is therefore essential, starting from the four main critical issues that all of us have encountered at least once in our lives.

FOUR GRIMACES. And we do not bat an eyelid

The golden rule for a PERFECT eye contour.

Dedicated to the orbicularis oculi muscle, i.e. the one that ensures that the eyelid does not sag, here is a four-move facial gymnastics exercise to combat the signs of aging (from the book “Fit&Face” by Silvia Pengo, Rizzoli). Movements 3 and 4 should be alternated 10 times.

• Close your eyes by raising your eyebrow and relaxing your eyelid as much as possible.
• Gently tighten the eye contour, without forcing.
• Wink against the resistance of your hands. And release gently.
• Open your eyes and mouth as wide as possible to completely flatten your face.

The golden rule for a perfect eye contour. Beauty Spa offers a pool of products dedicated to the eye contour area and the treatment of its blemishes, encompassed in the Eye Tech line by The Specialist. Each intervenes on specific problems, making use of targeted active ingredients. But the game is not played only with these allies: the removal of make-up is also very important, essential every night, to be carried out with specific products for the eye contour area. Carefully removing make-up before going to sleep is an essential step. It is useless to remind you of a technique well known to beauticians: soak the cotton pad in make-up remover and leave it to act on the eyes for a few moments, before passing it horizontally without rubbing. And a good morning starts in the evening.

ENHANCING the benefits of cosmetics

And this also applies to cosmetics: for them to act correctly and effectively, it is important not only to use them as indicated on the label, but also to use them at predetermined times, to enhance their benefits.

Beauty treatments that work in knowledge and respect of circadian rhythms therefore become the essential prerequisite for 24-hour beauty.

Let’s see in detail what it is.

The circadian rhythm

It has a strange name, many of us do not know what it is, but our body knows it very well. The circadian rhythm is a sort of internal clock that regulates the body’s activity throughout the 24 hours and which remains synchronized with the natural cycle of day and night, sunlight, environmental temperature and social stimuli – think of family dinners, always at the same time.

Circadian rhythms are important in determining the sleep and wake cycles of all animals, including humans. Their study also made it possible to detect how these actually direct brain activity, hormone production and cell regeneration, as well as other related biological activities.

The circadian rhythm ultimately affects the correct functioning of our entire body.

The REGULARITY of the circadian rhythm

The progress of our internal clock is regulated by a group of brain cells present in the hypothalamus – called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. This receives information about external light through particular photosensitive cells present in the retina, and organizes the body’s biological rhythms based on the succession of day and night. In turn, this information has important implications on the internal clocks of other organs, such as the heart, the liver and our beloved skin.

Anything that interferes with the regulation of this biological clock – staying up late, changing the time zone, resetting solar or summer time, as well as a change in the length of the day during the change of season – can promote malaise, changes in mood and negatively affect skin aging.

Circadian rhythms influence the skin’s ability to absorb and receive cosmetic products. Therefore it is necessary that these are applied at the right time, taking into consideration that the skin cells have their own particular functioning pattern, which reaches the maximum vitality between midnight and four in the morning and the lowest point at midday.

The epidermis also has its own internal clock, subject to circadian rhythms.

Chrono-cosmetics work in this direction: they respond to the variable needs of the skin throughout the day. Chrono-cosmetics become available when their supply is required and optimized, while their particular nature boost cellular regeneration and repair and allows them to operate in synergy with the skin’s natural processes.

Based on this knowledge, Beauty Spa has developed a high-end home treatment that deeply intertwines with circadian rhythms, optimizing them. For sublimated beauty.