Why can't I label everything as cosmetics?
For the production of cosmetics, it is necessary to comply with many government regulations, such as certification (so-called safety evaluation of cosmetic products) for each herb, oil, flower water and recipe separately, which is quite financially demanding. In addition, the production must be subject to hygiene regulations - this means, among other things, having the production in a room designated only for this purpose and in stainless steel and not in the kitchen. Unfortunately, it is still not profitable in the volumes and profits in which I am currently operating.
Without meeting these and other guidelines, the products offered by me can only be sold as decorative products. When ordering my products, you are ordering decorative items or individual ingredients, their mixing and packaging.
This also results in a legal obligation to inform you that any use on the skin of the goods mentioned here of our production or import is your own responsibility.
I stick labels with content and consumption information on all products. The duration is usually stated as approximately 6 months from the date of processing, so that it corresponds to legal obligations. However, the tested shelf life for most products is at least 12 months if the products are stored in a cool and dry place.
More detailed information on the issue of cosmetics production conditions, which are, paradoxically, more complicated for small-scale production than for food production:
For the official production and sale of cosmetics in the Czech Republic, it is necessary to comply with several official regulations for "consumer protection", we list only a part of them:
1. It is necessary to have a separately built separate room with a stainless steel kitchen, which corresponds to the guidelines according to the law. (And what about a specific official, that's a slightly different interpretation and requirements...) Which, unfortunately, is, of course, absolutely financially unrealistic for most of us.
The whole law is given by the EU directive, but in the Czech Republic it is still "tuned to perfection". In contrast, e.g. in Great Britain, it is possible to have your own kitchen approved by hygiene for home production of cosmetics and food. Therefore, if our officials were at least a little interested in supporting small business, a more viable solution would certainly be found.
2. You need to pay for a certificate - The price for the certificate is 5000 CZK per recipe/oil/herb. Again we climb to astronomical amounts. This is the protection of the consumer and his free will enshrined in our law.
3. The content of herbs - i.e. their medicinal substances - is also standardized. Therefore, if I spend my time using only pure natural products for production - vegetable oils and herbs, and if I try to choose everything of really good quality and use adequate quantities, so that my time and energy devoted to it has MEANING, it is not possible in many cases to fit the standards. Therefore, the law puts me at a crossroads again - either I submit and betray myself or join the pharmaceutical industry and the associated cycle of standards and stamps, or I will try to find other ways.
So far, only the one on which we offer my products as "decorative items" is visible to me, with the understanding that the decision of how you deal with them is purely your FREE decision.
In contrast, the behavior of pharmaceutical companies is sanctioned by the authorities:
eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgV5cKGWm_U).
Another incredible regulation, this time again from Brussels, is that I must not state publicly anywhere what specific herbs are suitable for, until Brussels publishes a "herbarium" with information that can be published and thus is "verifiable" by the current health care system. The information of our ancestors, confirmed by centuries of practice, is suddenly not trustworthy enough.
I consider it necessary to publish this information on my website. I offer products that are not certified as cosmetics under names that, unfortunately, do not clearly inform the customer about what they are and I only list the composition.