Cosmetic Raw Materials 
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Formaldehyde concentration
Hi All,
I hope that you are enjoying the spring time.
I’m working on aqueous formula with 10 .00% Formaldehyde 37% USP and I’m really having a hard time to find FDA regulation for maximum concentration for Formaldehyde in cosmetic products.
Any help would be much appreciated.
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4 Replies
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The Cosmetics Ingredients Review (CIR) and the European Commission both limit the amount of formaldehyde in cosmetics to 0.2%.
http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/cosmetics/cosing/index.cfm?fuseaction=search.details_v2&id=28127
http://online.personalcarecouncil.org/ctfa-static/online/lists/cir-pdfs/PR582.pdf
Hope this helps
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There is no formal limit on formaldehyde set by the FDA, as far as I know. The general rule about selling a safe product applies, which means that you’d need to do extensive safety testing to prove the safety of anything over the 0.2% level set by the CIR.
The State of California has effectively banned this ingredient (Prop 65). -
Guess this is about hair straightener where formaldehyde is used extensively and at times it is coined differently to avoid the term formaldehyde e.g. methylene glycol, methanal and so forth. There is much more to it but I guess this is enough where @Bobzchemist has already given a wonderful explanation. IIRC only in some nail products it can go up to 5%.
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@Chemist77 also, the SCCS have recently taken a poor view of methylene glycol in hair straighteners (link here), because when the hair is heated, either by blow drying or by application of straightening irons, it releases formaldehyde vapours at well above the maximum safe level
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