Essential oils should be labelled with usage warnings, says trade association

AHPA’s Board of Trustees has adopted a trade requirement in an attempt to support the safe use and proper indentification of topically applied undiluted essential oils.

By January 9 2010, all AHPA members must comply with the requirements of the ingredient by providing certain information on their product labels.

Members will have to include the following:

- ‘Keep out of reach of children’ or a similar cautionary message

- ‘External use only’, ‘Not for internal use’, ‘Not for ingestion’ or other similar cautionary message

- ‘Keep away from eyes and mucous membranes’ or similar cautionary message.

In addition, manufacturers will have to include the Latin name of the plant from which the oil is derived, as well as the part of the plant, on the label.

The trade requirement was developed by the Botanical Personal Care Products Committee which is comprised of AHPA member and non-member companies involved in the essential oils trade.

AHPA’s Botanical Committee was launched in April 2008 and is currently chaired by Aveda’s Mindy Green.

It was formed to ‘promote and protect’ the responsible trade of personal care products containing botanical ingredients and essential oils.