Permitted Cosmetic Preservatives — Annex V

Fifty-four entries is a small number for the job, and it is the reason preservation is one of the harder parts of an EU formulation. Like Annex IV and Annex VI, and unlike everything else in the regulation, absence here is a decision rather than a silence: a substance with antimicrobial properties that is not listed may not be used to preserve a cosmetic product, however well it works.

Many entries narrow further. The isothiazolinones are rinse-off only, at 0.0015%. Iodopropynyl butylcarbamate is excluded from body lotion and body cream entirely, and from products for children under three except bath products, shower gels and shampoos. Triclosan names its permitted product types one by one, and a format not on that list is a format where it may not be used. Reading a limit without the product types beside it produces an answer for a product that does not exist.

The purpose test cuts both ways. A substance can be present for a reason other than preservation — benzyl alcohol as a fragrance component, salicylic acid as an exfoliant, climbazole as an anti-dandruff active — and then the entry that applies is the one matching that purpose, often with a different limit. Where a substance is doing both jobs, the entries are not additive.

One thing this annex does not do is tell you a product is preserved. The limits are ceilings, and whether a formulation actually resists microbial growth is settled by challenge testing under ISO 11930, not by sitting inside a number.