I have been a little quiet of late, not without good reason.
For soap and cosmetics makers large and small, the regulations changed on 11th of this month, and we now have upload details of all our products to a Portal (otherwise known in this establishment, among other less polite things, as the black hole).
For those who think that this should be a simple task, may I remind you that this black hole was invented by someone in Europe and that it has, therefore, been made as difficult as possible. The requirements are simple enough - a photograph of the packaged item, the formulation, an image of the label and a few other small details which are effectively drop down or tick boxes.
What "the powers that be" have failed to understand is how many small soap/cosmetics manufacturers there are, and for most of the last week the system has, when working at all, puttered along so slowly that there has been a mass, Europe wide, tearing out of hair.
To add to my particular woes, I have been unable to upload a single pdf or image of my products until today, which would have meant I was unable to sell them, at least legally.
The big question now is who is going to police this, and check that the products have been correctly uploaded? I cannot see anybody trawling through the database looking at every one of the 1000s of uploaded recipes and checking that it is not harmful.
The other issue, of course, is that there are people who have never properly complied with the regulations, so why would they start now? These are the people that "the powers that be" should be more concerned about; the people who do not have their products assessed, do not list the allergens and do not care.
The people who do care are those who are now hairless, stressed and worried that they have not uploaded their products correctly.
For soap and cosmetics makers large and small, the regulations changed on 11th of this month, and we now have upload details of all our products to a Portal (otherwise known in this establishment, among other less polite things, as the black hole).
For those who think that this should be a simple task, may I remind you that this black hole was invented by someone in Europe and that it has, therefore, been made as difficult as possible. The requirements are simple enough - a photograph of the packaged item, the formulation, an image of the label and a few other small details which are effectively drop down or tick boxes.
What "the powers that be" have failed to understand is how many small soap/cosmetics manufacturers there are, and for most of the last week the system has, when working at all, puttered along so slowly that there has been a mass, Europe wide, tearing out of hair.
To add to my particular woes, I have been unable to upload a single pdf or image of my products until today, which would have meant I was unable to sell them, at least legally.
The big question now is who is going to police this, and check that the products have been correctly uploaded? I cannot see anybody trawling through the database looking at every one of the 1000s of uploaded recipes and checking that it is not harmful.
The other issue, of course, is that there are people who have never properly complied with the regulations, so why would they start now? These are the people that "the powers that be" should be more concerned about; the people who do not have their products assessed, do not list the allergens and do not care.
The people who do care are those who are now hairless, stressed and worried that they have not uploaded their products correctly.
