Hobby & Craft Forums

Just Soaps wrote:

Nickie wrote:Another thought then...

What would happen if say Judith's local TS said she doesn't to have a license for her kits but she employed me to make and dispatch them and my local TS said a license WAS required or vice versa?

Sorry Judith, juts using you as an example here as you're the only other soap maker I can think of on here who makes and then sells your products to the public.

All I can say is that we contact each TSD - 8 in total - we have to - to trade on the Farmers Markets - that we do - should there be a problem with the 9th TDS we would refer them to the other - 8

htms

Well I guess with moving around you'd have to Jane so you're covered in every area- like I said earlier, it must be a complete minefield for you. So if I decided to sell kits (and I'm not) then I could phone every TS in the country, get their opinions and if mine had a different view I could refer them to all the others I've phoned who had the opposite view? I'm now even more confused...so would I be right in saying TS are open to suggestions on how to interpret the law going on the advice of other TS branches?

Just Soaps wrote:Yep - you are correct - but it is all about money!

Not for me or you though

Okay, I'm no expert in this but to have a product certified as safe to market then I assume a fee is paid by the maker of the product to a pharmacist recommended by your local TS department? Am I right? I then assume the TS deparment take a cut of that fee which I again assume goes into local council funds and helps buy our poor little darling MP's pay per view * movies and such like lol!

Nickie wrote:

Just Soaps wrote:Yep - you are correct - but it is all about money!

Not for me or you though

Okay, I'm no expert in this but to have a product certified as safe to market then I assume a fee is paid by the maker of the product to a pharmacist recommended by your local TS department? Am I right? I then assume the TS deparment take a cut of that fee which I again assume goes into local council funds and helps buy our poor little darling MP's pay per view * movies and such like lol!

Wrong - the assessor takes full responsibility should there be a problem - TDS do not - well not in our case recommend assessors.

I believe you work in the care industry - what a minefield that is from county to county! It is all about money money!

You know what gov depts are like

Only just saw this so forgive me for not answering sooner...here's my take on a couple of the points raised:

Bearing in mind that Safety Assessements for cosmetics should take into account, not just the ingredients of the finished product and how those ingredients might interact with one another as a product for whatever use it is intended, but also a) the method used b) whether the person making them is 'qualified' to do so c) whether the person making them follows what is called 'best practice in manufacturing - kits are not being sold for people to make and sell the finished product - if they wish to do so they would need to have the finished product assessed for it's safety. The reason that one can't sell a kit as 'pre-certified' is because there would be too many variables over which the seller would have absolutely no control!!! However, if you sold a kit and someone followed your recipe to the letter, using your ingredients and something went wrong and (for arguments sake) their skin started falling off - you could still be sued

I think with the Trading Standards vagaries it's pretty much down to the priorities of the Local Authority; whether they have the money to pursue every complaint and query or whether that particular officer has much knowlegdge in that particular area of expertise...Law has always been and will always be a matter of interpretation - what one person deems to be reasonable, another may not....and legalise can always be interpreted differently for different purposes.

Hope this answers some of your questions....

Jude x

sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh

what a minefied........i think i'll stay with my beads and pins , you just don't realise how much behind the scenes works goes into peoples crafts do you

beckyboo wrote:sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh

what a minefied........i think i'll stay with my beads and pins , you just don't realise how much behind the scenes works goes into peoples crafts do you

For foodies it can be just as bad, recently I was with one producer - EHO came along - spent 2 hours on his stall - gave him an all clear.

The next day, different county, same producer, same stall - EHO came along - closed him down after 1/2 hour

The poor guy lost a days trading in Dec!

At least soapies do not have to worry about EHO for selling.

It just all seems so daft and as I said earlier, law IMO shouldn't be down to interpretation and should not have grey areas for different local authorities to exploit where they deem fit. A law should be a law and as such should applied evenly across the board in the state in which the law applies (in this case the whole of the UK). I'm defo going to look into this a little bit more and as soon as the Bank Holiday is over I'll be making some phone calls. I've never heard of anything so ridiculous in all my born days and how you girls and boys have managed to start businesses selling things in this minefield is a miracle in itself! All I can say is, you're very very brave as they certainly don't make things easy for you or even very logical and it seems there are more grey areas than areas which are clearly back or white!