New Cosmetic Product notification rules – Great Britain

Effective 01 January 2021

(Excludes Northern Ireland)

If you are making cosmetic products available to consumers in Great Britain (GB) after 1 January 2021, the product notification and related regulations have changed.

As we have now left the EU you will also need to address the requirement for an EU based responsible person if you are making your products available to EU consumers.

Here is the link to the new notification portal where you can create an account and start making notifications for your products related to the GB market. GB Cosmetic product notification (opens in a new window).

The rules for Northern Ireland are very different and this article only covers those cosmetic products to be offered to consumers in England, Scotland and Wales, referred to as GB.

If you operate in the NI market we recommend you follow this link to get guidance as to how the changes may affect you there. NI Guidance – Manufactured Goods post Brexit

Key Points

This a brief summary of information we have extracted for the official guidance notes. A link to the government site is included below and we suggest that you follow the links to get the detailed guidance and also the actual regulations.

• A cosmetic product ‘responsible person’ must deal with the required notifications. This ‘responsible person’ must be established in the UK. This person can be :
  • the manufacturer – (Please note that this is not a service we are able to offer at present)
  • the importer
  • the distributor, if they label the product as their own (for example, using their brand name)
  • an appointed company or person (who is authorised by the manufacturer or the importer)
• If you already have an existing product on the GB market which is correctly registered on the EU Cosmetic Product Notification Portal (CPNP) then you have until 31 March 2021 to notify using the UK’s Submit cosmetic product notifications service.
  • There is the provision to download your existing product notification from the EU portal into a .zip file and import the bulk of your data requirements into the GB system.
• However, a new product not yet notified on the EU portal must  be notified using the UK’s Submit cosmetic product notifications service before they can be placed on the GB market.
• There is a grace period for packaging to have the UK Responsible Person name and address on it. According to the guidance, all product packaging must bear the name and address details of the UK  Responsible Person  from 31 December 2022.

Please note that we do not offer legal advice and this information is posted for your general information and guidance. We do suggest you have a look at the following links in order to establish how these changes affect your business.

As always, we are available if you would like to discuss these changes and any issues that may arise during this transition.

Guidance from Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS)

Regulation 2009/1223 and the Cosmetic Products Enforcement Regulations 2013

The team at Jarvis wish you a happy, prosperous and safe new year and look forward to a very successful 2021.