CIOCCO COSMETICS RULING: The marketing of cosmetics products from the Joëlle Ciocco Paris brand have been suspended by France’s national agency of security for medicines and health products, or ANSM.
Ciocco is a celebrity facialist, based in Paris.
“We found during an inspection carried out with the DGCCRF [or Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention] that the company Capital Joëlle Ciocco did not comply with cosmetics products’ regulations,” the ANSM said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Checks in our laboratories have also shown that certain products specifically prepared for customers contain a corticosteroid, betamethasone, which is used in the composition of medicines and which can only be used within the framework of a medical prescription,” the agency continued.
According to European Union regulations, a cosmetics product is defined as “any substance or mixture intended to be placed in contact with external parts of the human body (epidermis, hair system, nails, lips and external genital organs) or with the teeth and the mucous membranes of the oral cavity with a view exclusively or mainly to cleaning them, perfuming them, changing their appearance, protecting them, keeping them in good condition or correcting body odors.”
“The assessment of whether a product is a cosmetic product has to be made on the basis of a case-by-case assessment, taking into account all the characteristics of the products,” according to CE.way, a regulatory consulting, safety and efficacy testing services company for cosmetics products.
As the Joëlle Ciocco brand crossed the line from cosmetics to medication, the ANSM has therefore suspended the manufacturing, distribution, advertising and usage of Joëlle Ciocco Paris Products, the brand’s products prepared specifically by the company Capital Joëlle Ciocco and the products created containing betamethasone.
The ANSM has told the company to pull all of its products from retail in France.