Doubts surrounding the potential adverse effects of antimicrobial preservatives have modified the demand of consumers, who increasingly insist on the production of low-level and even preservative-free cosmetics. Protection of the product against microbial contamination is therefore focused on the packaging. This has prompted the emergence of a highly diverse array of so-called "protective", "overprotective", and "barrier" packaging. However, these designations are not normalized and the choice of the right packaging adapted to each cosmetic product is still essentially empirical, hazardous, and time consuming. The Cosmetic Valleys cluster has launched a commission to define a complete and experimentally-validated method to classify the level of protection of cosmetic packaging against microbial contamination. As reported herein, this required the development a specific bacteriostatic medium that can be used for 7 days and an in vitro procedure that reproduces in-use contamination and consumer practices. Based on tests performed on over 800 packages of different origin and performance characteristics, we propose a classification, divided into six grades, to differentiate the protective efficiency of cosmetic packaging. This work can be considered as a first step towards a regulatory text.

中文翻译：

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开发评估化妆品包装对微生物污染的防护效率的标准化方法。

围绕抗菌防腐剂潜在不利影响的怀疑改变了消费者的需求，他们越来越坚持要求生产低含量甚至不含防腐剂的化妆品。因此，保护​​产品免受微生物污染的重点在于包装。这促使出现了高度多样化的所谓“保护性”，“过度保护性”和“阻隔性”包装。但是，这些名称没有经过标准化处理，因此选择适合每种化妆品的正确包装仍然本质上是经验，危险和耗时的。Cosmetics Valleys集群已启动一个委员会，以定义一种完整的且经过实验验证的方法，以对化妆品包装免受微生物污染的防护等级进行分类。如本文所报道的，这需要开发可以使用7天的特定抑菌培养基以及再现使用中的污染和消费者实践的体外方法。根据对800多种不同来源和性能特征的包装进行的测试，我们提出了一个分为6个等级的分类，以区分化妆品包装的保护效率。可以将这项工作视为迈向法规文本的第一步。区分化妆品包装的保护效果。可以将这项工作视为迈向法规文本的第一步。区分化妆品包装的保护效果。可以将这项工作视为迈向法规文本的第一步。