Opening Lines: Oh, Baby
France stirs up controversy over a new warning logo.
By Jennifer Kwok, EditorThe year has just begun, and already, a few beauty brands are having a bad start. On January 7, Procter & Gamble filed a trademark-infringement lawsuit against California private-label firm Blue Cross Laboratories. The lawsuit claims that Blue Cross Laboratories’ Herbal Passion shampoo and conditioner packages, sold in dollar-store outlets, violate P&G’s trademarked Herbal Essences hair care packages—in particular, their unique bottle shapes.
At CPC Packaging, we encourage brands to look for inspiration in the innovative packages that we cover, such as those in this issue’s cover story on hair care packaging. But at what point does following design trends become copying?
French health authorities caught some by surprise last fall when they proposed that beauty products carry a warning logo if potentially harmful to pregnant women or young children. Especially of concern are ingredients that might prove reproductively harmful, such as certain phthalates and parabens, which some claim act as endocrine disrupters.
Upon making the announcement, France’s minister of health, Roselyne Bachelot, subsequently urged France’s Agency for the Safety of Health Products to further research any reproductive risks associated with such ingredients.
Apparently not forewarned of Bachelot’s proposal, French cosmetics trade association FEBEA said that it was willing to work with French health authorities on the issue. However, FEBEA also claimed that Bachelot’s statements about certain ingredients were inaccurate, stating: “To date, no deformity has been linked to a cosmetic product.”
To the consumer, the use of a warning logo would probably seem sound. After all, warning labels are common on tobacco and alcohol, so why not cosmetics? Better to be safe than sorry.
The issue, however, brings up murky areas that have surrounded these controversial ingredients for some time. For instance, some argue that ingredients claimed to be potentially harmful are not harmful or are present in such minuscule quantities in cosmetics as to not pose any health threat. It has also been pointed out that many of the ingredients in question are often used in higher concentrations in food products. So, is the threat really as big as some in the industry make it seem? And would a warning logo do more harm than good? As Holly Young of Hirschhorn + Young Graphis points out, “You have to draw the line between scaring the public or informing the public—there’s a difference.”
Of course, all opposition to a warning logo on packaging would end if authorities should indeed prove that the ingredients in question truly are harmful.
In the United States, the response to the announcement in general is to wait and see how this issue plays out. Most can’t help but imagine the big picture. If France does end up requiring such a logo, it could become a requirement in the EU. It will certainly affect packaging for products imported into Europe. And of course, it will leave many wondering whether the United States should also adopt a warning logo of its own—and whether U.S. regulations are too lax. Oh, baby, indeed.
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