This BVL announcement/report gives German orientation values for technically avoidable heavy-metal contents in cosmetic products. It explains that EU Cosmetics Regulation 1223/2009 prohibits listed heavy metals as intentional ingredients while Article 17 allows unintended trace presence only when technically unavoidable under good manufacturing practice and safe for human health.
Table 1 sets technically avoidable values for lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and antimony in cosmetic products in general and in toothpaste, with higher lead values for specified decorative and theater/fan/carnival make-up categories and a higher arsenic value for theater/fan/carnival make-up. These are recorded as guidance impurity limits rather than statutory maximum levels. Arsenic is recorded as total arsenic (tAs), and mercury is recorded as total mercury (tHg), because the table does not state narrower species.
Update history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Change | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| a8052bb | 2026-08-09 | minor | Narrative text revised |