Expensive to get wrongEuropean UnionBeauty & personal care

The public can ask for the formula and the harms

The responsible person must make the qualitative and quantitative composition of a cosmetic product, and existing data on undesirable and serious undesirable effects from its use, easily accessible to the public by any appropriate means, with the quantitative part limited to substances classified as hazardous and without prejudice to commercial secrecy.

The adverse-effects half is the one nobody plans for, because it obliges a brand to publish the record of what has gone wrong with the product rather than only what is in it, and there is no version of that which reads well when it is assembled reactively.

93 of a possible 97Tier A, primary document or measured outcome. Nothing at this tier is allowed past 97, however good it looks.

Verified August 5, 2026Rechecked every 365 days, next by August 5, 2027.

Constraint

Held since July 11, 2013A rule, law or policy that limits what you may do or say. The earliest date we are willing to say this held. It may well have been true before that; we do not backdate a record past the evidence we have read. Supported, version 1.

This entry is wrong if

Article 21 is repealed, or amended to remove undesirable effects data from what must be publicly accessible, or the quantitative disclosure is extended beyond hazardous substances.

Written before the record was published, not after. If you can show this, send it to hello@tryorbt.com and the correction goes on the record with the entry.

Evidence

Tier Aregulation
Publications Office of the European Union: Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 November 2009 on cosmetic products
the responsible person shall ensure that the qualitative and quantitative composition of the cosmetic product and, in the case of perfume and aromatic compositions, the name and code number of the composition and the identity of the supplier, as well as existing data on undesirable effects and serious undesirable effects resulting from use of the cosmetic product are made easily accessible to the public by any appropriate means.
Read 2026-08-05 · Open government · page hash 858298b0649b
Tier Aregulation
Publications Office of the European Union: Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 November 2009 on cosmetic products
The quantitative information regarding composition of the cosmetic product required to be made publicly accessible shall be limited to hazardous substances in accordance with Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008.
Quoted because without it the first sentence reads as a duty to publish the whole formula, which it is not.
Read 2026-08-05 · Open government · page hash 858298b0649b

History

v1createdAugust 5, 2026
Entered 2026-08-05 from primary documents already held in the store, at the same content hashes recorded when they were first read. No new retrieval.

Append-only. Nothing in this list is edited or removed once written, including the entries that record our own mistakes. Every change to every record is on the corrections page, and the same log is in entries.json under revisions.

eu
transparency
ingredients
disclosure
cosmetovigilance
beauty

Cite this entry

“The public can ask for the formula and the harms”, The Orbt Market Index 0.1.0, entry omr:eu:the-formula-has-to-be-reachable-by-the-public, retrieved September 9, 2026, https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/eu--the-formula-has-to-be-reachable-by-the-public. Dataset: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22679129

Orbt, "The public can ask for the formula and the harms," Orbt Market Index, entry omr:eu:the-formula-has-to-be-reachable-by-the-public, verified August 5, 2026, https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/eu--the-formula-has-to-be-reachable-by-the-public.

@misc{orbt-eu-the-formula-has-to-be-reachable-by-the-public,
  title        = {The public can ask for the formula and the harms},
  author       = {{Orbt}},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.22679129},
  note         = {The Orbt Market Index 0.1.0 (dataset DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22679129), entry omr:eu:the-formula-has-to-be-reachable-by-the-public. Verified 2026-08-05},
  howpublished = {\url{https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/eu--the-formula-has-to-be-reachable-by-the-public}},
  license      = {Orbt Index Public Licence. Free to quote and cite; not to redistribute}
}

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