Allergies.  Every year perfumes give vast numbers of children allergies.  But that’s about to end since the European Parliament agreed yesterday on a European Union (EU) ban on fragrances in baby-care products. Read the article.

Perfume to be removed from baby products

Allergies.  Every year perfumes give vast numbers of children allergies.  But that’s about to end since the European Parliament agreed yesterday on a European Union (EU) ban on fragrances in baby-care products.

By Katrine Nielsen and Britta Hansen (translated by Bernard Miller)

STRASBOURG (Aktuelt):  Babies cheeks may often red, but it shouldn’t be because of perfume allergies.  That was a majority decision of the Parliament meeting yesterday.

The Parliament has now requested the Commission to draft common EU rules which will, in practice, ban artificial fragrances in creams, shampoos, powder and other articles found on European babies’ changing tables.  The ban will come into force from December this year.

At the same time, the Parliament also wants EU rules requiring all cosmetics to carry an explicit declaration of contents.  Currently manufacturers are not obliged to indicate whether the product contains fragrances.

A further innovation is that all cosmetics will also have to display markings showing for how long they can be used after opening.

The new rules are needed because masses of children’s personal-care products are full of chemicals, as a study by the Green Information Centre shows.

Based on the declaration of contents, Green Information has assessed the contents of 104 products for environmentally and health harming substances, including shower gels and bubble bath products, shampoos, creams and oils.

Only 29 of the products could be recommended.  The rest contain either substances determined to be environmentally damaging or suspected of being hormone disruptors.  Furthermore, 36 of the 104 products contain potentially allergy producing  perfumes.