J. Soc. Cosmet. Chem. 28 651-658 (1977)¸ 1977 Society of Cosmetic Chemists of Great Britain Oosmetics and the uture R. J. L. ALLEN* The 1977 Medal Lecture by Professor R. J. L. Allen, delivered before the Society of Cosmetic Chemists of Great Britain on 3 March 1977, with D. F. Williams Esq., President of the Society in the Chair. When, early last year, your President was kind enough to suggest that I should give the 1977 Medal Lecture my first reaction was to disqualify myself. My background is in biochemistry, nutrition and food science, and it appeared to me improbable that as a comparative newcomer to the scene I could contribute much that would be of interest to members of the Society. My doubts were strengthened when I looked back through numbers of the Journal to see who had spoken to you in previous years and about what. I found that twelve distinguished authorities in the biological and physical sciences, as well as experts in cosmetics, had pretty well covered the field in a series of lectures of outstanding quality and breadth of learning. Contributions by Bullough on the re- juvenation of the skin, Polano on the effects of detergents, your Patron Lord Todd on the interface between organic chemistry and cosmetic science, Wilkinson on cosmetic function and public expectation and Ebling on sex hormones, to name only some, seemed to have left little for me to say. However, your President is very persuasive, and when after a short discussion we parted, I found that I had in fact somehow agreed to undertake what was clearly a rather formidable task. It seemed to me on reflection that I ought to try to turn to advantage my limited direct experience with cosmetics, and put to you for consideration some points that, as a relative outsider, seemed to me to be worth discussing in relation to cosmetics in, say, the remaining quarter of this century. The first difficulty I encountered was to define my subject. What are cosmetics? The very word itself is hedged with ambiguity. To the layman, it often seems to mean mainly decorative products such as lipsticks and mascara (from the Greek kosmein, adorn) but for cosmetic chemists the term embraces toiletties, and this wider definition now has a firm legal basis through the Cosmetic Products Direcfive (1) soon to be incorporated into United Kingdom law. However, that is not all because the definition in the Directive extends to products on the borderline with medicines. Lastly, it must be admitted that the very word 'cosmetic' in popular use can have a pejorative connotation, as when we speak of 'cosmetic changes' as merely patching up and calcu- lated to deceive, although I am not for a moment suggesting that this applies to the description 'cosmetic chemist'! I hope you won't think me impertinent if I say that per- haps an effort should be made even at this late date to find a word that would define * Beecham Group Ltd., Brentford, Middlesex. 651

652 R. J. L. Allen more clearly, and without ambiguity and possibly misleading overtones, the true nature and scope of your discipline. If none of the 163,000 words in the Shorter Oxford Diction- ary are suitable perhaps the so-called dead languages could help out once again? In 1834 Faraday sought the help of Whewell, the Master of Trinity and a scientist and philologist of European reputation, in coining logically impecable names for the phen- omena of electrochemistry which he had elucidated (2), and electrolysis, cathode, anion etc. still serve us well a century and a half later. You may think I am making too much of this, but words are powerful things and in my experience apparently trivial problems of nomenclature often reflect more substantial uncertainties and unresolved tensions lying beneath the surface. Perhaps at the same time, incidentally, you could think about 'chemist' in your title. I do not think it adequately defines responsibilities that now extend far into the fields of biology and physics. What is the general outlook for the cosmetics industry, particularly in this country, in the next 25 years? In broad terms the prospects would appear to be reasonably good. The industry has not so far attracted the suspicious dislike that certain politicians show for the pharmaceutical industry. Cosmetics are not at present used as a major instrument of tax manipulation to anything like the same extent as are alcohol and tobacco. So far as I know, there are not even any proposals to nationalise the industry. But there is no lack of problems that will have to be identified, tackled and solved if the industry is to survive in the form we know. The only way I know of forecasting the future is by extrapolating the past. Tonight, I want to suggest perhaps paradoxically that what we should try to extrapolate is the past not of this industry but of the food and pharmaceutical industries. As a matter of fact, I made a rather similar suggestion in this very room on 5 January, 1967, when you were discussing currents trends in toiletries legislation but as no one took much notice of what I said at the time I have no scruples in making my point again a decade later! In a very short time by historical standards the cosmetics industry has been trans- formed by a rapid growth in the role that science plays in its affairs. It is bad luck, in a way, that this critical change in the internal environment of the industry has coincided in time with a quite remarkable growth in the amount of intervention Newspeak (3) for interference--in the affairs of the industry by governments. Ten years ago the United Kingdom cosmetics industry operated in a singularly relaxed regulatory climate. There were the general provisions of the law but only a minimum of specific legislation. That era has gone. Consumer protection is bi-partisan policy and the excellent--indeed outstanding--safety record of the industry has in no way inhibited the politicians from moving towards the imposition of detailed regulation. It is no longer a question of whether the industry is going to be closely regulated, but how. I believe, therefore, that there is something to be learned from the experience of the United Kingdom food and pharmaceutical industries, which have themselves in the last 25 years suffered a vast increase in regulation and control from outside. in fact, to someone like me who has worked in these industries it is really quite fascinating how history is repeating itself. It is hard to realise the formal control of the safety of pharmaceuticals was minimal before 1 January, 1964 when the Committee on Safety of Medicines was set up with Sir Derrick Dunlop, your 1971 Medallist, as chairman. This admirable and effective system, which depended entirely on the voluntary compliance and co-operation of the pharmaceutical industry, was swept away with the passing of Medicines Act 1968. The small, expert and highly regarded staff of the Committee have been replaced by a vast and growing bureaucracy. These developments have had an