Size, purpose and intention

Any solid plastic particle

Not a named polymer, not a list to check against. The definition starts from the physical description, which means a new material does not escape it by not being on a list.

Less than five millimeters in size

Which is generous as a ceiling and catches essentially every particle a scrub would use. There is no lower bound, so very fine plastic powder is inside it too.

Intended to be used to exfoliate or cleanse

The purpose limb. A plastic particle present for some other reason, a glitter for appearance for instance, is not within the definition on its face, which is a distinction worth being careful with rather than relying on.

The human body or any part thereof

Broad, and it is what carries the paragraph into toothpaste alongside the express inclusion. Cleansing any part of the body is within it.

Intentionally-added

So incidental presence is outside the paragraph. That is a sensible limit for contamination and it is not a route for a deliberate ingredient described as incidental.

Which makes the ingredient decision simple

For a rinse-off scrub, use an exfoliant that is not plastic. Sugar, salt, ground apricot or walnut shell, pumice, clay, oat, coffee and jojoba esters are all in ordinary use and none of them is a plastic particle.

And it is a prohibited act, not a misbranding

Which is a different kind of consequence from almost everything else in this library. There is no label that cures it and no warning that makes it permissible.

No list means no comfort in a new material

A definition built on physical description rather than on named polymers cannot be outrun by a novel particle. That is deliberate, and it is why the supplier question is what the material is rather than whether it is approved.

References