Hair oil firms to list contents on package

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is issuing a notification to hair oil makers that they should clearly list on their product label the percentage of each content.

The BIS took this step after the Maharashtra FDA made a representation to it specifying that the hair oils being sold as coconut oils were essentially a mixture of vegetable and mineral oils, with less than two per cent of the product comprising coconut oil.

A BIS official said the Maharashtra FDA felt that passing off vegetable and mineral oils as coconut oil which is popularly believed to be conducive for the growth of hair amounts to misleading consumers. The BIS is in agreed\ment with the stand taken by the Maharashtra FDA.

BIS has notified the FDA that it would release the gazette notification making amendments to existing laws with the next two months. According to the new notification, the hair oil products will also be required to list in a descending order the various oils present in the product with their percentages.

Similarly, no name or abbreviation or such device that is misleading to the consumer such as saying the product is an enriched oil, or pure coconut oil (when it is actually a mixture of vegetable and mineral oil) will be permitted. According to the official, the notification will specify that even where such adjectives are permitted, their font size on the label should be smaller than the name of the product. The notification also seeks to restrict the product size of hair oils to one-litre or one-kg packaging so as to prevent any possibility of vegetable oil-based hair oil products going into the edible oil segment and inadvertently being used for consumption, the official added.