ISO/TC 217, the technical committee in charge of cosmetic products at the International Organization for Standardization recently finalized a standard for evaluating the risk of microbial contamination of cosmetic products.

Standard “ISO 29621:2010, Cosmetics - Microbiology - Guidelines for the risk assessment and identification of microbiologically low-risk products,” should help determine which cosmetic products present a very low risk of contamination.

Within the frame of the new standard, a number of product characteristics needs to be evaluated when performing a microbial risk assessment, such as product composition, production conditions, packaging and a combination of these factors.

According to Mojdeh Rowshan Tabari, Secretary of the technical committee and Convener of the working group which developed the standard, ISO 29621 will help cosmetic manufacturers and regulatory agencies to better focus their quality controls.

ISO 29621:2010 costs 66 Swiss francs and is available from ISO national member institutes and from ISO Central Secretariat.