Preservative Efficacy Test
(also called a PET or Challenge Test)
The demonstration of the effectiveness of the preservative system of your product may be a regulatory requirement. This test determines whether specific organisms that we add to your product are suitably reduced in number over time. Along with the basic, specified test organisms we also include a combination of environmental isolates that have been shown to exploit weak preservative systems. So you can be certain that a product that passes has been very rigorously tested.
The most frequently requested test is that of the European Pharmacopoeia. This involves the inoculation of products with
Staphylococcus aureus
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Aspergillus niger
Candida albicans
E coli
Zygosaccharomyces rouxii
Additional environmental isolates
Testing varies for different product types. For further information and technical details please see our
Topical Product PET Test Data Sheet.
Oral Product PET Test Data Sheet.
