Korea Revises Cosmetic Labelling and Advertising Standards

Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) released amendments to Guidelines for Management of Labelling and Advertising of Cosmetics. The new rules will enter into force from 24 June 2015 and initially apply to products manufactured and imported for the first time.

The amendments are as follows:

Medical functional claims
	Current Rules	Revised Rules
Prohibited claim	Antibacterial	Antibacterial
Note	Claims in appendix 2.1 excluded	Claims in appendix 2.1 excluded. “Better antibacterial effect” is prohibited to be indicated for liquid soap containing Triclosan or Triclocarban.

Organic cosmetics
	Current Rules	Revised Rules
Prohibited claim	The claim “organic” is prohibited to be indicated on the cosmetics violating the standards requested by the Commissioner of the Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety	The claim “organic” is prohibited to be indicated on the cosmetics violating the standards requested by the Commissioner of the Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety
Note	none	Where other ingredients besides water and salt in cosmetics shall account for over 95%, the claim “organic” can be marked.

Commissioned manufacturer can adopt approaches like modification, deletion and over-labelling to comply with the new rules but shall make sure the sticker won’t be damaged or fall off. Manufacturers shall conduct in vivo testing or in vitro testing requested for validation of claims of cosmetic labels or advertisements in accordance with the “Provisions for Validation of Labelling and Advertising of Cosmetics”.