South Korea Functional Cosmetic Evaluation Situation

Recently, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) released the Statistics on Functional Cosmetics Evaluation in the First Half of 2023¹, aiming to provide insights into Korean functional cosmetics development trends for research and development.

Functional cosmetic is under special supervision in South Korea. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) has published a regulation named Korean Functional Cosmetics Codex (KFCC)², which lists the scope of noticed functional ingredients. These ingredients can be made into functional cosmetics without MFDS’ evaluation. However, for cosmetics whose functional ingredient is not listed in the KFCC, the product should undergo an evaluation conducted by MFDS. Therefore, functional cosmetic’s evaluation situation can reflect functional cosmetic trends. As South Korea is the world's top 3 cosmetic exporter, knowing the new trend of Kbeauty is vital for the players in the cosmetic market.

1. Sunscreen Tops the List of Functional Cosmetics Evaluations

The case number of functional cosmetic evaluation in the first half of 2023 reached 524, marking an increase of 8% compared to 485 cases in the same period of the previous year.

From the aspects of product efficacy, sunscreens with “UV filters” accounted for the most with 192 cases, followed by functional cosmetics with triple efficacies of “whitening, wrinkle improvement, and UV filters” with 92 cases, hair loss alleviation with 72 cases, and products with dual efficacies of “whitening and wrinkle improvement” with 36 cases.

2. Increase in Functional Cosmetics with Restoring Skin Barrier Function

The number of evaluation cases for “functional cosmetics helpful in restoring the skin function to relieve the skin itching", a category firstly designated as functional cosmetics firstly in 2020, was three in 2021, nine in 2022, and eleven in the first half of 2023, indicating an active development for the product with this efficacy.

Background information

On August 5, 2020, MFDS revised the Enforcement Rule of Cosmetics Act. The functional cosmetic category "functional cosmetics helpful in alleviating the skin dryness caused by atopic skin" is changed as "functional cosmetics helpful in restoring the skin function to relieve the skin itching". By deleting the atopy expression, which is likely to mislead consumers into thinking the cosmetics are medicines, the competent authority intends to reinforce the management of functional cosmetics claims. Read more here³.

3. Domestic Functional Cosmetic Accounts for 89% in the First Half of 2023

Among the functional cosmetics evaluated in the first half of 2023, 466 were domestically manufactured, accounting for 89%, while 58 were imported. This shows an increasing trend in the proportion of domestically manufactured products, following 83.5% (405 domestic, 80 imported) in the first half of 2022 and 86.3% (422 domestic, 67 imported) in the second half of 2022.

MFDS expects that the statistics on functional cosmetics evaluations can serve as a fundamental indicator for cosmetic research and development. Detailed data are as below:

No.	Efficacy	Evaluation case number
		2021		2022		2023
		H1	H2	H1	H2	H1	Ratio(%)
Functional cosmetic with single efficacy	Whitening	10	23	17	13	20	5.5
	Wrinkle improvement	16	21	20	13	16	4.4
	UV-filter	230	136	176	190	192	52.5
	Hair dye	42	11	39	29	29	7.9
	Body hair removing	0	1	0	1	0	0
	Alopecia alleviation	15	13	17	46	72	19.7
	Acneiform skin alleviation	53	26	26	30	24	6.6
	Helping restore the skin barrier function to relieve the skin itching	0	3	3	6	11	3.0
	Helping Thin stretch marks.	1	2	1	1	2	0.5
	Subtotal	367	236	299	329	366	100
Functional cosmetic with dual efficacies	Whitening + wrinkle improvement	35	41	76	46	36	54.5
	Whitening + UV-filter	18	6	14	12	18	27.3
	Wrinkle improvement + UV-filter	25	7	15	18	12	18.2
	Subtotal	78	54	105	76	66	100
Functional cosmetic with triple efficacies	Whitening + wrinkle improvement+ UV-filter	106	60	81	84	92	100
Total		551	350	485	489	524	100

Regulatory information about Korean cosmetic: