South Korea Revises Cosmetic Act

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. 

3. Optimizing the Requirements Regarding Solid Soap

MFDS optimized the packaging requirement of solid soap. In cases of labeling the following matters on the secondary packaging, solid soap products can be exempted from marking the labeling matters on the primary packaging.

Labeling matters on the secondary packaging of a solid soap:

• Name of a cosmetic;

• Trade name and address of the business operator;

• All ingredients used in manufacturing the relevant cosmetic (excluding ingredients prescribed by Enforcement Rule of the Cosmetics Act³, such as trace ingredients that are not harmful to the human body);

• Volume or weight of contents;

• Manufacturing number;

• Use-by date or best-before date after opening;

• Price;

• Cautions for use;

• Other matters prescribed by Enforcement Rule of the Cosmetics Act³.

4. Administrative Regulation

Provisions about administrative penalty are inserted. The new Act stipulates that violators will be punished by either a fine of up to 30 million KRW or a maximum prison sentence of three years, in the cases of:

(a) Filling the business registration/report by fraud or other improper means;

(b) Inspecting or reporting the functional cosmetics by fraud or other improper means.