Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR)
Industry-fundedAn ingredient-review program established and funded by the Personal Care Products Council (PCPC), a cosmetics-industry trade association. · United States
Visit the source site · Audited 2026-10-14
Who pays for it
CIR says PCPC funds the program, but the amount and share of PCPC's budget attributable to CIR were not identified in the reviewed materials.
Status: Labeled
Labeled because PCPC funds CIR and chairs its policy committee, while a distinct expert panel makes the scientific conclusions. CIR reviews are not FDA approvals or product-level risk assessments.
How SafeMomma uses it
SafeMomma uses CIR only for the ingredient and conditions its review assessed, with independent regulatory and exposure-specific evidence as a cross-check.
The audit
- Who controls it
- PCPC established CIR and funds it. A seven-member policy committee is chaired by PCPC's President and CEO; a separate scientific Expert Panel makes ingredient-review conclusions, with FDA and Consumer Federation of America as non-voting liaisons.
- Money
- CIR states that PCPC funds it. The dollar amount and share of PCPC's budget attributable to CIR were not identified, and PCPC-wide finances are not a CIR-specific budget.
- Conflict rules
- Panel members disclose interests at appointment, annually and before meetings. The rules restrict relevant industry ties, but allow certain institutional support; a conflicted member generally cannot take part unless the Chair or a majority grants a waiver.
- Method
- CIR publishes priorities, reviews literature, accepts public comment and stakeholder submissions, publishes draft reports and holds public deliberations. It assesses ingredients under specified uses and concentrations, not finished products or pregnancy-specific risk.
- Dates on its pages
- The procedures are dated December 2025, and each ingredient assessment has its own date and may later be reopened or amended.
- Political exposure
- CIR is nongovernmental, and FDA attends without a vote and may agree or disagree with its conclusions. The 2022 Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act changed federal cosmetics regulation; the review found no politically ordered rewrite of CIR reports.
- Money exposure
- CIR is industry-funded, and the reviewed materials do not quantify that funding. In 2018, Women's Voices for the Earth criticized CIR's funding and governance; CIR disputed the critique, and in 2021 it declined a request to reopen an ingredient assessment. These documented disagreements do not establish that PCPC dictated a result.
- Track record
- CIR can conclude that evidence is insufficient or request more information. The reviewed materials identified a continuing disagreement over its methylchloroisothiazolinone/methylisothiazolinone assessment, but no specific formal retraction or regulatory finding of misconduct.
Where this comes from
Incentive exposure describes pressure from money or politics, not whether the source is right. Funding alone does not show influence.