There has been a lot of change in the Chinese cosmetics industry since the new overarching regulation – Cosmetics Supervision Administration Regulation (CSAR) – came into force on January 1, 2021. To help you keep up-to-date and compliant we have prepared this infographic of the upcoming compliance deadlines.

In the import and export trade, it is common for commodities involving endangered species to be punished, especially in cosmetics. In most cases, they fail to provide the import and export permit certificates or species certificates according to law. The following is a summary of 4 cases on cosmetics containing ingredients of endangered species for reference.

A summary of SCCS opinions from January to June 2022

A fragrance is a natural or artificial synthetic substance that has a smell or odor because of its specific functional group or specific chemical structure. It is used in small amounts in cosmetics, but it is an indispensable raw material of cosmetics. With the wide application of fragrances, security issues are also of concern. In this Article, CIRS Group is to give an introduction of the supervision requirements on fragrance in Europe and China.

At present, the major oral care products on the market include toothpaste, mouthwash and oral. Among them, the supervision on toothpaste is relatively comprehensive. On June 29, 2020, the State Council issued the Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Cosmetics which made it clear that the pre-market as well as post-market supervision of toothpaste are handed over to the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) and that toothpaste shall be managed as ordinary cosmetics. After toothpaste being regulated as cosmetics, they are subject to product filing, raw material filing/ registration, product efficacy claims, efficacy evaluation, etc., in addition to the existing production license management.

On May 30, 2022, the Scientific Committee for Consumer Safety of the European Union (SCCS) issued a draft opinion SCCS/1644/22 on the safety of Aluminium in cosmetic products, which concludes that the safety of aluminium compounds in sprayable applications other than antiperspirant cannot be evaluated. The deadline of public comment is July 25, 2022.

Recent years have witnessed the earthshaking changes in the cosmetic industry: the Cosmetics Supervision and Administration Regulations have replaced the Regulations concerning Hygiene Supervision over Cosmetics in 2021 before the release of a series of supportive rules. Facing the challenges in the revolution of cosmetic regulations and the Covid-19 epidemic, it is urgent for cosmetic enterprises to quickly and accurately respond to the changes. To help cosmetics enterprises accelerate research and development of products, provide solutions to address practical issues, and reduce compliance risks, CIRS has prepared and launched the Chinese Digital Cosmetic Compliance Platform.

According to the statistics of National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), as of May 26, a total of 675 cosmetics registration certificates have been issued in 2022. Among them, certificates for imported special use cosmetics only accounted for 11 percent of the total. Due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic in 2020, the total amount of registrations for special use cosmetics in the first half of 2021 merely remained half of that in the previous year. Worse still, as the epidemic continued in the first half of 2022 and due to the transition of cosmetic regulations, the number of registrations for special use cosmetics decreased significantly compared with that in the first half of 2021, by 76.5%.

After the implementation of a bunch of cosmetic regulations in China, NMPA has gradually strengthened its efforts to rectify the cosmetics industry. Many cosmetics companies have been fined for their inappropriate efficacy claims, with the total amount even up to 400,000 yuan. CIRS Personal and Home Care Products Division has summarized the cases of improper claims in recent years and sorted out illegal claims for enterprises’ reference.

The Safety and Technical Standards for Cosmetics is an important technical regulation for cosmetics supervision and the research and development of cosmetics in China, which is formulated based on the Regulations Concerning the Hygiene Supervision over Cosmetics (1989). Since the release of the Standards in 2015, the Standards have been revised for 8 times. Moreover, after the issuance of the Regulations in 2020 and a series of supporting documents, the concept, mechanisms, and systems for cosmetic supervision has been dramatically changed. As a result, it is urgent to revise the corresponding parts prescribed in the Standards.