Standardize cosmetic labels to protect consumer rights

In order to further standardize the supervision and management of cosmetics and protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, the Cosmetics Supervision Department of the State Food and Drug Administration has sorted out the relevant issues related to cosmetics labeling and identification that are relatively concerned by the industry, and answered them one by one in accordance with my country's current cosmetics regulations and relevant technical specifications. .

Q: Why must cosmetics sold in my country have Chinese labels? What are the specific requirements for the text used in Chinese labels?

A: Cosmetic labels are the main way to identify and explain the basic information, attribute characteristics and safety warnings of products, and are the key factors for consumers to buy products. In order to protect consumers' right to know and choose, and to facilitate consumers to use cosmetics correctly and to know relevant precautions, the Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Cosmetics (hereinafter referred to as the Regulations) and the Measures for the Administration of Cosmetics Labels (hereinafter referred to as the Measures) Cosmetics that are marketed in China are required to have Chinese labels. Cosmetics Chinese labels should use standard Chinese characters. If Chinese labels use other words or symbols other than standard Chinese characters, they should use standard Chinese characters on the same visible side of the product for explanations. Websites, names and addresses of overseas enterprises, and conventional professional terms must be used. Except for the use of other words. If the registered trademark in the Chinese name of the product uses letters, pinyin, numbers, symbols, etc., its meaning should be explained in the same visual face. Except for registered trademarks, the font size of other text fonts on the same visible surface of the Chinese label shall be smaller than or equal to the font size of the corresponding standard Chinese font. If a Chinese label is affixed to the original packaging in a foreign language, the labeling of the Chinese label shall meet the above requirements.

Q: Why do cosmetic labels need to indicate the relevant information of the registrant, filing person, domestic responsible person, and manufacturer?

Answer: According to the "Regulations", the registrant and filing party should be a legally established enterprise or other organization, not a natural person. Cosmetics registrants and filers can produce cosmetics by themselves or entrust other companies to produce cosmetics. If the registrant or filing party is an overseas enterprise, an enterprise legal person within my country shall be designated as the domestic responsible person to assist the registrant and filing party in taking responsibility for product quality and safety. The registrant and filer claim to be responsible for the quality, safety and efficacy of cosmetics, while other responsible entities involved in the production and operation of products, such as actual manufacturers and retailers, are responsible for product quality and safety within their respective responsibilities. Cosmetics are health-related products. In order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and facilitate consumers to accurately obtain the main responsible body of the product during the use of the product, the "Regulations" and "Measures" stipulate that the label of cosmetics should indicate the registrant, filer, domestic The name and address of the responsible person. At the same time, considering that the same registrant or filer may entrust different manufacturers to produce products, and the products produced by different manufacturers may have differences in quality and safety, the regulations also stipulate that product labels should be marked with the name of the entrusted manufacturer ,address.

Cosmetics registrants, filers, domestic responsible persons, and entrusted production enterprises are all production responsibility entities clearly stipulated in the regulations. In addition, other concepts, terms and expressions related to product producers, including "supervisory", "produced", "brand licensor", etc., are not clearly defined by regulations and the meaning of the words themselves is relatively vague. Consumers and enterprises are not aware of these The understanding of the words is inconsistent. Labeling enterprise or organization information with similar terms will cause consumers to misunderstand the product manufacturer and the responsible subject, which is "false or misleading content" stipulated in the "Regulations" and shall not be displayed on the product label. Make similar annotations. Similarly, labeling other trademarks other than the brand name in the product name on the product label, which causes consumers to misunderstand the cosmetic manufacturer and the responsible subject, is a labeling behavior that should be prohibited.

Q: Should ingredients such as antioxidants, preservatives, stabilizers and other protective ingredients added to cosmetic raw materials be marked on the product label?

A: The ingredient information of cosmetics is of great significance for consumers to choose cosmetics that meet their own needs. Some ingredients may cause allergies to some consumers. By viewing the full ingredient information of the product, consumers can avoid known allergens. . In order to protect consumers' right to know, the "Measures" stipulate that the standard Chinese name of the raw materials of all cosmetic ingredients should be marked on the product label, with "ingredients" as the guide language, and listed in descending order of the content of each ingredient in the product formula.

Cosmetic ingredients refer to the ingredients that are purposely added to the product formula during the production process and play a certain role in the final product. In order to ensure the quality of cosmetic raw materials, an extremely small amount of antioxidants, preservatives and stabilizers are added to the raw materials. and other ingredients, although the product formula is filled in the form of compounding of the raw materials when applying for registration or filing, but the ingredients that do not belong to cosmetics may not be marked on the product label; of course, in order to enable consumers to fully understand the possible The ingredients contained in the product can also be marked on the product label. In short, extremely trace amounts of antioxidants, preservatives, stabilizers and other ingredients added to the raw materials in order to ensure the quality of cosmetic raw materials may or may not be marked.

Q: How to correctly mark the standard number that the product implements?

Answer: According to the "Regulations" and "Measures", the label of cosmetics should be marked with the standard number implemented by the product. The standard number of the product to be marked on the cosmetic label is intended to guide the cosmetics industry to implement "one product, one standard" and use the means of standard management to promote product quality. When applying for product registration or filing products, cosmetics registrants and filers shall compile and submit relevant materials of "product implementation standards" in accordance with the requirements of the "Administrative Measures for Cosmetics Registration and Filing" and "Regulations on the Administration of Cosmetics Registration and Filing Materials". In order to facilitate the registration and filing of cosmetics registrants and filers and product labeling, the cosmetics registration and filing platform sets the standard number of the product to be consistent with the registration certificate number of special cosmetics or the registration number of ordinary cosmetics. The registration certificate number for special cosmetics is obtained when the product is registered, and the registration number for ordinary cosmetics can be preset through the registration platform.

Cosmetics registrants and filers shall, in accordance with the "Measures", mark the correct product standard number on the product label. If it is necessary to mark the national standard, industry standard or other relevant standard number other than the standard number implemented by the product on the product label, it shall meet the requirements of relevant laws and regulations, and the content shall be true, complete and accurate.

(Source: State Food and Drug Administration website, title added by editor)

Further reading

Beware of "Routines" in Cosmetics Trademarks

□ Landscape

In the cosmetics market, some merchants often have the following "routines" in the use of trademarks, and consumers should pay attention to identification and prevention.

Situation 1: Direct fraudulent use of another's trademark. This is prohibited by law. Some illegal production dens imitate the packaging and labels of other well-known brands, directly use others' trademarks, and lure consumers to buy at low prices. In order to prevent buying fake and shoddy products, consumers should choose online or offline merchants with complete licenses and standardized operations to buy products, and ask for invoices or sales certificates.

The second situation: the use of trademarks that are similar or similar to well-known brands. These trademarks are not exactly the same as well-known trademarks, but are identical or similar to well-known trademarks in terms of shape, pronunciation or meaning, which may easily lead to misunderstandings by consumers. However, there are differences between these trademarks and well-known trademarks, which are not illegal in many cases. Consumers can check the official website of the product or call the company's contact number to clarify the difference to prevent confusion.

The third situation: unauthorized use of others' trademarks on cosmetics without the permission of the trademark owner. Compared with the complete counterfeiting of other people's products in the first situation, this situation has certain concealment. These merchants did not use the same packaging and labels as the infringed party, but independently designed other packaging and labels, and printed the trademarks of other companies on their own product packaging, making consumers think that the product has the endorsement of the trademark party. This increases product trust. In recent years, some cosmetic manufacturers have marked the product labels with trademark information related to pharmaceutical companies to imply that the products have obvious effects. Among them, there are also cases of malicious use of other people's trademarks.

The fourth situation: In addition to the trademark of the manufacturer, the product is also marked with the trademark of other enterprises, so that consumers cannot distinguish the responsible body for product quality and safety. The difference between this case and the third case is that in the third case the infringed party is unaware, while the fourth case is the result of the cooperation between the manufacturer and the trademark party.

The cosmetics industry generally adopts the commissioned production model. In the past, because the main responsible party of the entrusted production of cosmetics was not clear, once the quality and safety problems of the products occurred, the entrusting parties often shied the responsibility of each other, and it was difficult for consumers to protect their rights. In order to clarify the main body responsible for the quality and safety of cosmetics, the "Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Cosmetics" (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") establishes the system of cosmetics registrants and filers. Cosmetics registrants and filers are not natural persons. The "Regulations" make it clear that whether it is self-produced or entrusted to other enterprises, the cosmetics registrant and filing party are the main responsible parties of the product.

In theory, cosmetic trademarks should be trademarks representing the registrant and filing person. In practice, there are some enterprises that do not meet the requirements of registrants and filers, and have not obtained the qualifications of registrants and filers. They entrust other companies to produce cosmetics, and directly let the entrusted production enterprises act as registrants and filers to handle registration and filing matters. It is only responsible for product sales. Regulations do not prohibit this business model. However, some companies are not willing to be only distributors, but also want to reflect their own brand names on product labels, so that in addition to the product name, other trademarks are also marked on the product. This behavior belongs to false or misleading content on cosmetic labels, which violates relevant laws and regulations.

In addition to directly labeling trademark information, some companies will also use other methods to "touch porcelain" well-known companies, such as labeling "a certain (well-known) enterprise honorary production", "a certain (well-known) enterprise supervision" and so on. These labels will make consumers think that these well-known companies are also involved in the production of products, which is also misleading.

The fifth situation: Although the product is marked with the trademark legally held by the cosmetics registrant and filing person, the name of the product does not contain the trademark name. This is also a problem that many cosmetic companies often ignore. The Chinese name of cosmetic products generally consists of three parts: brand name, common name and attribute name. In order to enhance the publicity effect, some enterprises choose to mark the logo (LOGO) on the product to highlight the trademark, or separate the brand name from the product name, and use eye-catching fonts to separately mark the words that reflect the trademark. In fact, this behavior of marking other words or patterns (LOGO) representing trademarks in the label area other than the product name violates the regulations on the management of cosmetic labels.