“It represents a sea change,” said Kelly A. Bonner, an associate at law firm Duane Morris about the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act.

Passed by Congress at the end of last year, the ruling, known in the industry as MoCRA, is the first major statutory change to the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act regarding the regulation of cosmetics since the FDCA’s enactment in 1938.

While not as far-ranging as some had hoped, the headline is that the Food and Drug Administration has been ordered by Congress to engage in more regulatory activity of the cosmetics industry.

“It creates substantial new compliance obligations for cosmetics companies, specifically manufacturers, packers and distributors,” said Bonner. “Consumers are really the beneficiaries of this….it’s going to mean that consumers will receive more information about the products that they use.” [...]

At the top of their to-do lists, companies will have to prepare to register facilities with the FDA and submit to the FDA lists of products and ingredient information including the location of manufacturer and the ingredients of any fragrances or flavors, according to Bonner.

“One thing to note about that is that companies will be required to submit this information to the FDA. That said,it does not necessarily follow that this information will remain confidential because in the United States, you can obtain information from the FDA pursuant to Freedom of Information Act requests,” she said. “So it is possible that this ingredients list of products can become public information… unless it is covered by an exemption and, I would say, particularly the trade secret exemption.”

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