As in the case of watches and chocolate, the designation ‘Made in Switzerland’ lends these products an image of high quality and reassures the user.

But there’s always another side to the coin and the success of Swiss-made products has caused much envy, to the extent that the cosmetics market has seen an avalanche of ‘Swiss’ products of which the only Swiss factor is the word on the label or the packaging and which lead the user to a mistaken assumption concerning their origin.

With this problem in mind the main Swiss cosmetics manu-facturers have formed an association to protect genuine Swiss cosmetic products and provide a guarantee of origin for their customers.

Under the name of the ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE ORIGIN OF SWISS COSMETICS (SWISSCOS) a label (SWISS GUARANTEE COS) is used on packaging, in advertising and on members’ promotional material. This label guarantees that what the customer buys was indeed made in Switzerland.

The Swiss Department of Trade has issued directives concerning the attribution of the CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN that the members of SWISSCOS must have in order to be entitled to use the designation on their products.

On the strength of the new directives from Brussels and the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements concerning the protection of guarantees of origin, the Association will not hesitate to attack any company which uses the designation SWISS.... for its products illegally in this connection SWISSCOS counts on the support of the federal authorities.

Thus with the SWISSCOS GUARANTEE COS label shown opposite, both the retailer and his customers will be able to distinguish between the genuine Swiss made product and imitations.

The first products bearing the SWISSCOS label are already on the market and foreign agents who import Swiss-made goods really appreciate its use.

Needless to say, each new member will strengthen the Association through its presence and its brandname and will increase the effectiveness of the Association’s work even more.