China Cosmetics 2015 Regulatory Supervision Trends

The Shanghai Cosmetics Supervision Work Conference is an opportunity for the Chinese cosmetics industry and international stakeholders to come to terms with the current protocols enforced during regulatory supervision and get to grips with the 2015 regulatory work focus and any future regulatory direction. Amei Li, (Quality Managing Director at a renowned cosmetic company) attended the conference and revealed the takehome messages to ChemLinked.

• CFDA will tighten post-market inspection this year and will also focus on the inspection of OEM manufacturers in 2015. There will be three kinds of approaches to inspect cosmetic companies: routine inspection, undercover inspection (inspector identity is unknown) and spot check. A system of rewarding informants will also be established as a supplementary supervision measure. It can be expected that the strengthening of inspection will rectify and standardize the cosmetic markets and accelerate the phase out of unqualified manufacturers.
• Toxicological tests can be exempted as long as the products are proven to be safe by safety assessment. However regarding acceptable safety assessment documents, the CFDA didn’t issue any official guidance on this issue in the past. According to Amei, CFDA is now formulating the guidelines for the risk assessment.
• The final version of Administrative Measures on Cosmetics Labelling will be released in the first half of 2015 as planned. From July 1 2015 onwards this regulation will be officially implemented and the existing labeling rules and labels cannot be used.
• Two years ago CFDA announced the integration of “Cosmetics Manufacturing Enterprise Hygiene License” and “Cosmetics Production License” to streamline the cosmetic production licensing system in China. At present, the “Cosmetics Production License” is no longer issued and newly established cosmetics manufacturers only need to obtain a “Cosmetics Manufacturing Enterprise Hygiene License” from provincial FDAs. However, manufacturers holding the product license (including the expired ones) are still required to provide a product license number when keeping records or registering with the CFDA. Amei said that the integration will be officially implemented and the mandatory requirement of product license number will be removed.
• Amei also stated that there was no official timeline for devolution of supervisory power from CFDA to provincial FDAs but that FDAs are currently actively hiring qualified staff to fulfill these future duties.