Dubai Central Laboratory (DCL) of Dubai Municipality recently opened a new laboratory for testing perfumes. The move was part of the efforts to provide the best services for its customers and work to develop continuously, especially in the area of testing and analysis of consumer goods in order to protect consumers from products not conforming to the specifications, which are detrimental to public health and safety and the national economy.
The opening ceremony held at The Address Hotel under the sponsorship of MH Alshaya Co was attended by Eng. Mohammed Badri, Director General of Emirates Authority for Standardization and Metrology, Eng. Salem Mesmar, Assistant Director General of Dubai Municipality for Health, Safety and Environment Monitoring Sector, Eng. Abdullah Rafia, Assistant Director General for General Support Services Sector, Eng. Salah Amiri, Assistant Director General for Environmental and Public Health Services Sector and representatives of municipalities and local departments and the world's leading companies in the field of cosmetics, personal care and perfumes.
The launch of the new laboratory is part of the plan of Dubai government's strategic policies in order to raise the quality standards and consumer protection. It is also part of the keenness of DCL to develop more analytical services, studies and scientific research and operations to achieve the vision of Dubai Municipality to build an excellent city that provides the essence of success and comfort of living so as to ensure optimum application of the system of control and development, as appropriate for that vision and excellence.
Farah Al Zarouni, Head of Consumer Materials Laboratory gave a presentation on the various services available in her laboratory, such as testing precious stones like diamonds, pearls and different colored stones and precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum, testing and registration services for household electrical appliances, testing services for all cosmetics and personal care items, services to test different textile products such as clothing and fabrics, decoration, and toys and childcare items safety testing services.
The presentation also dealt with the need to develop a perfume testing laboratory, which comes to achieve the strategic objectives of Dubai Municipality to maintain public health and safety and to ensure conformity of goods and products traded in the markets of the emirate to the approved specifications and standards.
Zahida Sadiq, an expert at the DCL presented a detailed technical report on the advanced chemical and physical tests conducted in the perfumes laboratory and the results of field surveys in the markets of the emirate in order to build a scientific database.
Eng. Hawa Bastaki, Director of Dubai Central Laboratory Department said that perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils and aroma compounds, fixatives and solvents used to give the human body, object and living spaces a pleasant smell.
"The uses of aromatic products of various types have increased dramatically over the past few decades. As some of those products may cause health problems, it was necessary to ensure the health and safety of consumers. Skin contact or ingestion of fragrance materials may cause some health problems like Asthma, Sinus problems, dermatitis, Migraine headaches, Irritation or Allergies. It was of our duty to apply the highest safety standards for the product, identify materials and products that cause adverse reactions, ensure the quality of the products available in the region and identify and analyze allergic substances in the perfume materials and determine the ingredients to ensure that the basic ingredients in the perfume product are primary scents like Modifiers, Blenders and Fixatives Solvents," she said.
Bastaki said the Consumer Materials Laboratory conducts several tests on aromatic products including Visual inspection, Turbidity test, Determination of Essential Oil content, Determination of Ethanol Content, Determination of Methanol in relation to Ethanol content, Determination Propan-1-ol, Determination of Diethyl Phthalate content, Determination of Bitrex content, and Determination of Allergic substances such as Amyl Cinnamal, Benzyl Alcohol, Cinnamyl Alcohol, Citral, Eugenol, Hydroxy-citronellal, Isoeugenol, Amylcin-namyl Alcohol, Benzyl Salicylate, Cinnamal, Coumarin and Geraniol.
She said the laboratory has the latest hardware using high-resolution technologies, to conduct tests and to draw conclusions, and these devices include Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS), Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatograph (UPLC), Refractometer, Polarimeter, and Incubators.
For the purpose of facilitating continuing communication with customers the DCL has launched its website www.dcl.ae several years ago, which contains details on the activities and laboratory services in order to achieve development and to facilitate access to all stakeholders and members of the community and informing them of the latest developments in laboratory services and quality.
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For further information:
Ismail Meladi
Senior Media Officer, Media Section
Corporate Marketing & Relations Department
Dubai Municipality
+971 4 2064657
+971 4 2232188
+971 50 6341075
ipparambil@dm.gov.ae
© Press Release 2011
