Why Bella Lucce has withdrawn its support from the CFSC

November 13, 2009

I regret to inform our clients and readers that Bella Luccè has officially withdrawn its support from the Campaign For Safe Cosmetics . The reasons were many and varied, but the withdrawal of that support is in no way reflective of a change in Bella Luccè’s serious commitment to making safe cosmetics for our clients. The campaign has largely become political and has begun to employ tactics that are, in my opinion, designed to cause fear and confusion among consumers in an effort to control them. And that’s not really in the best interest of the public, now is it?

I first requested removal of Bella Luccè’s name as a signatory on the campaign in September. I eventually received a response from the campaign via Connie Engel, who invited me via email to further expound upon my concerns. I took her up on that offer today. I also thought it relevant to share my concerns here as well, since there seems to be mass confusion on behalf of small beauty companies (some of who are signatories themselves) and those of you who consume our products. It is my sincere desire to protect both consumers and small businesses and I remain optimistic that there is a way to come together. Though the campaign has not been responsive in the past to these types of requests, I am hopeful that Connie’s invitation signals a change in the wind…I assure you that it would be most welcome. Below is my letter to the Campaign For Safe Cosmetics in its entirety- I welcome your comments.

Connie,

My apologies for the delay in my reply; the busy 4th quarter is upon us and the workload is always a tad heavier at this time of year. I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to share my concerns about how CFSC is approaching the current cosmetics regulatory climate.

I’d like to first clarify that my concerns are not new. I expressed these same views in August of 2008 in a call with CFSC- Lisa Archer in particular, though I cannot recall if you were a part of the conversation. Additionally, the concerns of small beauty companies have been presented to you by Donna Maria Coles Johnson, president of the Indie Beauty Network, in a series of calls that I encouraged Lisa to pursue. Furthermore, I am aware of quite a few companies who expressed similar concerns last fall when CFSC added a petition to their website (again in August, I believe) which seemed to support the FDA Globalization Act, even though the campaign had not consulted its signatories on the matter. I am personally aware of at least a half-dozen companies who withdrew their company’s support of the campaign based upon similar concerns, and I know of more who are considering doing so as of this day.

My concerns are neither new, nor mine alone. They are shared by many small business owners who are directly and adversely impacted by CFSC’s actions. I am encouraged that you now seem receptive to listening to these issues, and I hope that you and your colleagues will give them the consideration they deserve. In the past, all concerns and requests for transparency and additional information have gone quietly unanswered, or for such a long period of time that the thought that your organization has Compact signers’ best interests at heart does not seem plausible. I am optimistic that this is not the case…

While there is certainly room for improvement in terms of regulation and enforcement in the cosmetic industry, CFSC has mischaracterized the status of current FDA law to consumers who do not have a context for the statements CFSC is making. While it is no secret that the industry has issues where ingredients are concerned, demonizing the entire “cosmetics” trade as a modern-day, unregulated “wild wild west” is both unfair and untrue. In fact, it is the larger companies for the most part causing the problems, not your Compact signers, who use little to none of the ingredients that cause you the most concern.

I first became a compact signer in 2004. At that time, I believed it was in my best interests, and the interests of my customers, to cooperate with your organization to encourage safe cosmetics. But now, under the CFSC program, it is clear that the information I and others signatories have provided is being used in ways that were not fully disclosed to us initially. In particular, the data and the companies that submitted it to you are now being told that they will be “graded” on their ingredients. In effect, if they do what you say they must do, they receive a “gold” grade. If they do not, regardless of whether they meet your “gold” criteria in terms of the ingredient they use, they are not on your “gold” list. This makes it appear as though there is something inherently wrong, sub-standard, unsafe or otherwise undesirable about the products of every single company that does not appear in your database. That is misleading to consumers and unfair to the companies who are using “safe” ingredients (according to CFSC’s definition), but who do not want to become a part of your Campaign.

While the message that cosmetics should be safe is a good one, CFSC is turning it on its head by essentially forcing companies to become Compact Signers, even if they do not wish to be so. According to your website:

Companies that become compact signers are “responsible.” This insinuates that companies that do not become compact signers are irresponsible simply because they are not compact signers.

Companies are also characterized, by inference, as “corporate laggards” if they have not signed your compact. This inference is an insult to companies that strive for excellence even though they may not ever have even heard of CFSC. Companies are told that they can win “market share” by signing the Compact. This statement is manipulative at best.

These kinds of condemnations of the industry as a whole were not a part of your original outreach to me and other small cosmetics manufacturers. Indeed, CFSC routinely updates its website to include new policy positions, petitions and videos without even notifying its own compact signers! Thus, CFSC is now manipulating our original trust by using the information we shared with you to put many of us out of business. As signatories, we trusted you to act in our best interests, and now that you’ve gotten what you need from us, you are publicly stating (via your website, videos and Twitter) that the industry we participate in as a whole is killing babies and contributing to the environmental downfall of our nation. The entire ordeal smells faintly of a bait-and-switch.

The current CFSC grading system is unfair and has the potential to seriously mislead consumers by “grading” companies based on whether they sign the Compact in the first place, and then if they do, based on whether they have access to the information required to achieve the “gold” standard. Indeed, I am routinely becoming aware of companies that meet your “gold” standard, but who are being told by their wholesale customers that if they don’t become a compact signer, they will take their business elsewhere. I am also aware of companies who wish to be removed from the compact, but who are afraid that taking that action may adversely impact their businesses, depending on what CFSC says or does not say about companies that are not compact signers. Is that what you want your organization’s impact our nation’s small and independent business owners to be?

If a company does not know about or wish to sign the Compact for reasons that have nothing to do with ingredients, their absence from the list creates the impression among site visitors and consumers that their products are not safe to use. It seems as though that is the intention of the CFSC and I find that tremendously regrettable. To me, the grading system is akin to extortion, exchanging a company’s trade secrets for support and “protection” from consumers’ impression that any company that is not a compact signer produces “bad” products. In fact, your actions of late are (in my opinion) eerily reminiscent of an old school mafia, offering protection in return for support. Even those companies wishing to strive for your “gold” standard, but who cannot get the required ingredient statements from their suppliers, will be deemed “out of compliance” by your rating system. I believe the current system cannot possibly be fairly applied, articulated or understood as a result.

I find your organization’s position to be unclear and confusing at best, and often wrong. The CFSC is clearly trying to send the message that the FDA does not require cosmetics to be safe (here’s an example). While it’s true that no specific safety testing is required, the FDA does by statute require cosmetics companies that do not test for safety to include a label to that effect on their packaging. Whether or not that is enforced is one thing, but to say that the FDA does not require it is quite another. Your organization’s statement that there are not “organic” standards when it comes to cosmetics is wrong. While it’s true that the FDA does not regulate “organic,” under the NOP Program, it is illegal to identify a product ingredient as certified organic unless that ingredient is in fact certified organic. Moreover, in some states, notably California, you cannot label a cosmetic as organic unless it is in fact 70% organic. To state that consumers are totally at the mercy of big conglomerates everywhere they turn vastly oversimplifies the state of the industry and the law and serves only to inject fear, uncertainty, doubt and panic- never a reasoned approach.

A fundamental flaw in your advocacy, and one which I have continually attempted to draw CFSC’s attention to, is that the campaign itself draws no distinction between large companies and small businesses. Your public statements, press releases, videos and blog posts give short shrift to the very real fact that a growing segment of the cosmetics industry is composed of companies that make products on a very small scale, and they would be decimated by the overall perception that not being on your gold list means that their products are unsafe. In conversations that I have had with the campaign via phone, at 2008 Boston meeting and in CFSC conversations that other small businesses and industry leaders have shared with me, the campaign has said privately that they are committed to taking advocacy positions that do not unfairly impact small businesses. Yet, in your public statements, you bury it in a footnote at best, even while the vast majority of your compact signers are, in fact, small businesses.

Your Toxic Tub report, for example, contains a tiny footnote that says, “provisions should be made to support businesses, particularly small businesses, in meeting federal regulations for safer products.” But what exactly does that mean? You have been asked, yet you have declined to say. CFSC has thus far been unable and/or unwilling to share any tangible plans to support small businesses, nor any strategy for doing so. There is a growing contingent of current and former compact signers who feel like small children patted on the head occasionally by the campaign, with the sole intention to placate us, without our concerns being given serious thought or identifiable action.

CFSC has been unwilling to state what you mean privately or publicly about your support (or lack thereof) for small businesses nationwide at a time when they need public and private support more than ever as our economy continues to evolve. That is disingenuous and unfair, not only to compact signers but to the consumers you want everyone to believe you are serving.

CFSC is, and has been for years, using Compact signers to further its own personal agenda. You’ve never offered those who have placed their trust and faith in you as signatories even the slightest advance indication with regard to the public positions you intend to take, all the while referring to us as compact signers. This creates the distinct impression that we are “on board” with all that you say and do and you know that is not true. While we’re swimming in a vacuum without information, you present the image to consumers (and probably to state and federal regulators without our knowledge), that anyone who is not on board with what you are doing is selling unsafe products.

While the current regulatory system is not ideal, consumers deserve a fair assessment of those issues, not one mired with fiery rhetoric and closeted intentions. Scaring everyone helps no one. Small businesses started this movement and we are poised to help the FDA create a safer industry, but categorizations that usurp the regulator and create more work for us is not a meaningful path to success.

As a longtime campaign signatory, I was eager to stand with you to promote safe products and meaningful discourse with the public. It is tremendously regrettable that five years after adding my company’s name to the campaign, I needed to withdraw it. However, I cannot sit idly by as the CFSC quietly morphs from a private organization designed to educate consumers and serve small businesses into one that is hell-bent on controlling the cosmetics industry as a whole, under a veil of secrecy and new, surprise, “gotcha” legislation.

If your organization is sincerely interested in opening a dialog with small and independent cosmetics companies with an eye toward discovering the existence of common ground pursuant to which positive steps can be taken to more fairly inform the public of the status of small cosmetics businesses, and the cosmetics industry in general, I would be happy to assist, and I don’t have to be a Compact signer to do so. I can be reached by reply email or at the number below. Since there is a reasonable certainty that more legislation will be introduced and/or revived in the new year, I am busy at present planning my company’s activities for 2010. I respectfully request that CFSC make their intentions known before the end of this year, so that I and other small companies may plan accordingly.

If not, then know that I sincerely wish you’d chosen a different path, or- at a minimum- been transparent about the true path you intended to take.

Regards,

Lela Rain Barker
Founder & Creative Director
Bella Luccè Ltd. Co.

I’d like to offer my sincere thanks to Donna Maria Coles Johnson, president of Indie Beauty, who has tireslessly campaigned to protect small beauty companies and consumers. We’ve exchanged literally hundreds of emails over the past 18 months and traveled to Capitol Hill together (along with Kayla Fioravanti of Essential Wholesale, Anne-Marie Faiola of Brambleberry and Jamila White of eCommerce Diva). These women have dedicated massive amounts of time and resources via email discussions, strategic planning, travel to meet staffers and hours of phone calls. This movement would not be where it is today if it weren’t for their support and I sincerely thank each of you for the commitment you’ve displayed.

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