The packaging of a well-made cosmetic product sometimes carries the note ISO 22716. Most people read past it. Yet that code says something important about how a product is made, and so about what you put on your skin. Here is what the standard means.
What ISO 22716 is
ISO 22716 is an international standard for the good manufacturing practices of cosmetics, GMP for short. The standard is published by the International Organization for Standardization and describes how a cosmetic product should be produced, controlled, stored and shipped. It sets out how you handle raw materials, how you document production, how you safeguard hygiene and quality and how you keep a product traceable from start to finish.
Why the standard exists
Cosmetics go on your skin, daily and over a long time, so the way they are made matters. In the European Union, compliance with good manufacturing practices is a legal requirement under the cosmetics regulation, and ISO 22716 is the standard widely followed for it. The standard exists to take arbitrariness out of the production process: not relying on good intentions, but on documented procedures that can be checked. That way quality becomes a system rather than chance.
What it means for you
For you as a user, production to ISO 22716 means a product is made in an environment with fixed rules for hygiene, quality and traceability. You buy not only a formula, but also the way it came about. Our beard oil is produced in a certified Italian laboratory that works to this standard. It is the same thought that carries our whole brand: craft and control belong together.
A good formula deserves a production as careful as the recipe.