On August 17, 2021, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) promulgated the revised Cosmetic Act1. The main amendments include:
1. Banning the Sales of Food-simulating Cosmetics
MFDS banned the sales of food-simulating cosmetics to prevent consumers from eating by mistake. The authority pointed out that cosmetics simulating food form, containers, or packaging are prohibited from manufacturing, importing, displaying, or selling after September 18, 2021.
2. Amending the Requirements of Custom Cosmetic
MFDS intensified the safety management of custom cosmetics by (a) establishing facility standard, (b) requiring the entity to report the raw material list, and (c) forbidding the entity to sub-divide the final cosmetic product for making up the custom cosmetic.
In addition, the duty of custom cosmetic compounding manager is specified. Apart from responsible cosmetic distributors, the Act stipulates that custom cosmetic compounding managers cannot distribute or sell any cosmetics for which the animal testing under subparagraph 1 of Article 2 of the Laboratory Animal Act2 was conducted.
Besides, the authority also strengthened the management of custom cosmetic compounding manager qualification test.
The amendments concerning custom cosmetics will come into effect on February 18, 2022.