draft commission directive amending council directive 76 768 eec concerning cosmetic products for the purpose of adapting annex iii thereto to technical progress. the scientific committee on consumer products sccp recommended an overall safety assessment strategy for hair dye substances including the requirements for testing substances used in hair dye products for their potential genotoxicity mutagenicity. following the opinions of the sccp the commission together with member states and stakeholders agreed on an overall strategy to regulate substances used in hair dye products according to which the industry was required to submit files containing the scientific data on hair dye substances to be evaluated by the sccp. substances for which updated safety files were submitted are currently being evaluated by the sccp. for 17 hair dye substances final opinions have already been given by the sccp. therefore definitive regulation of these hair dye substances on the basis of such evaluations can take place. substances p-phenylenediamine ppd and toluene-2 5-diamine ptd are currently regulated under entries 8 and 9 in part 1 of annex iii to council directive 76 768 eec. the sccp classified these substances as extreme sensitizers contributing to a great extent to the incidence of skin allergies among consumers to hair dye products. the risk assessment of the submitted additional data on ppd and ptd and final decisions made by the sccp on the safety of these substances might still require a considerable amount of time. as a precautionary measure to reduce the risk of allergies to hair dye products among consumers the maximum authorized concentrations of ppd and ptd should be immediately decreased to the levels for which the industry submitted the safety files. in view of the above the european commission intends to create 17 new entries in annex iii part 1 list of substances which cosmetic products must not contain except subject to the restrictions and conditions laid down to cosmetics directive. to decrease the maximum authorized concentrations of ppd and ptd to the levels for which the industry submitted the safety files. according to this proposal the maximum allowed concentrations for ppd and ptd set out in annex iii part 1 to cosmetics directive in the hair dye formulations applied to hair will be 2 and 4 .