L’Oréal and Nestlé partnered up to create a nutricosmetic, Innéov, i.e., “beauty pills” with blackcurrant seed oil, fish oil, lycopene, vitamin C and vitamin E. In April 2010, the company submitted a dossier to the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) health claim panel to request approval of its health claim— “helps to improve dry skin conditions”. It referenced 29 publications validating its claim, including six human studies; but some of the studies were specified to the individual ingredients, rather than the product as a whole.
However, EFSA denied Innéov’s health claim request. According to EFSA: “In weighing the evidence, the Panel took into account that two studies on the effect of the food that is the subject of the claim and that used appropriate outcomes did not result in a significant improvement in skin dryness. The Panel concludes that a cause and effect relationship has not been established between the intake of a combination of blackcurrant seed oil, fish oil, lycopene, and vitamins C and E, and improving dry skin conditions.”
CosmeticsDesign.com spoke with Innéov’s director for regulatory affairs and product security Michel Donat, “Narrow parameters appear to be better for EFSA. With the dry skin claim there are many parameters involved, if we had chosen one which is more specific we may have had more luck,” he said. The company has one month to comment, in which Donat replied, “We will use this time to make some comments. I appreciate that we will not reverse the opinion of EFSA, but we would like some kind of recognition of the product’s efficacy.”