Fig. 1

Regulatory scheme for maintenance of the microbiological quality of cosmetic products. The figure illustrates the possible microbiological entry into the cosmetics products. The microbial load should be examined at every stage of manufacturing and packaging till the finished product formation, and should be intermittently checked during storage and distribution. The bio-burden is required to meet the specification criteria as recommended by the British Pharmacopeia (BP), European Pharmacopeia (EP) or the United States Pharmacopeia (USP). Market complaints need to be handled carefully to ensure the further product quality employing the good manufacturing practice (GMP) and total quality management (TQM). The critical points of microbial access into the products are required to be monitored by means of the “hazard analysis: critical control point” (HACCP) implementation [51]