According to the law, any cosmetic product placed on the market must be first of all safe for the consumers’ health. The expert to assesses if it really is safe is the safety assessor. 

It is a person who holds a diploma or other evidence of formal qualification awarded on completion of theoretical and practical university studies in pharmacy, toxicology, medicine or another similar discipline or course recognised as equivalent by the Member State concerned (Article 10 of Regulation 1223/2009/EC).

The cosmetic product safety assessment, or cosmetic risk assessment, is the assessment of the probability of adverse effects occurrence within its use. Safety assessor analyzes the properties of the cosmetic as a whole and its particular

ingredients. The whole analysis is presented in so called cosmetic product safety assessment report (CPSR).

The CPSR usually consists of 4 steps:

1. hazard identification – determining whether and how the substance may be toxic, this is connected to the nature of the ingredients,
2. hazard characteristics – assessment of the dose-responserelationship. If the substance is a potential hazard, this step makes us look for a specific dose of the substance in which the harmful effects do not occur,
3. exposure assessment – is a calculation of the substance dose to which consumers are exposed during the cosmetic usage,
4. risk assessment – is setting of the so-called margin of safety (MoS), which is connected to the comparison of the safe dose and the actual dose of the substance related to the cosmetic use.

The last element of the safety assessment is the so-called risk management. Even if the risk exists, it can be minimized by appropriate product’s conditions of use or special precautions, e.g. short time of contact with the skin, avoidance of the eye area application, only professional use allowance, the allergy tests performed prior usage, or the recommendation to use UV protection after the product application.

The INCI labelling on the cosmetic packaging is also a risk management element. Thanks to this a hypersensitive person can resign from the cosmetic usage, if it contains allergens specific to them.