In today's globalized market environment, the safe use and management of chemicals are of vital importance. The REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals) Regulation is a chemical management regulation established by the European Union to protect human health and the environment.

On January 16, 2025, the UK notified the World Trade Organization (WTO) of the draft Cosmetic Products (Restriction of Chemical Substances) Regulations 2025, proposing amendments to Annex III of Regulation (EC) No. 1223/2009 on cosmetic products to restrict the use of Methyl Salicylate in certain cosmetic formulations. The regulation is scheduled to be adopted on April 30, 2025, and will officially come into effect on September 30, 2025.

As part of the ongoing effort to enhance safety and provide key information in the event of a chemical emergency, the European Union has introduced new requirements for the Poison Centre notification (PCN) under the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) Regulation and the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) framework. These changes are essential to ensure that relevant authorities can quickly access vital information in case of poisoning or hazardous exposure.

On February 10, 2025, National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China (NHC) issued an announcement (No. 1 of 2025) for “Three New Foods” with 20 products approved, including 5 new food raw materials, 8 new food additives, and 7 food-related products.

The "Application Specifications for Safety Information Codes of Hazardous Chemicals" of Guangdong Province has been officially implemented since February 11, 2025. Both enterprises and the general public can access it through the following link: Standard Information Inquiry - Standardization Administration of China.

In the wave of globalization in the food industry, innovation and safety are inseparable. An increasing number of companies are actively pursuing the FDA GRAS notifications for new food ingredients. Unlike self-GRAS, the FDA GRAS require the formation of GRAS evaluation materials, and when GRAS materials are submitted to the FDA, the FDA issue the inventory notices on its official website and updates information periodically. The latest update to this inventory was on January 7, 2025.

We have collected the latest FAQs on ordinary cosmetics filing from the Guangzhou Administration for Market Regulation and translated them into English for your reference.

Since January 1, 2025, the grace period related to the Poison Center Notifications (PCN) to the European Union (EU) Poison Centers has come to an end. This means that companies must submit and successfully notify the unified format of notification dossiers before they can place their products on the EU market. After the deadline for industrial mixtures passed on January 1, 2024, the Hungarian appointed body has been conducting reviews of the submitted PCN dossiers. The main focus of the review is to check whether the information in the dossiers complies with the requirements of the CLP Regulation. The content of the PCN notification is mostly derived from the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) of the product, especially the toxicological information, which is the entire content of Section 11 of the SDS. Therefore, to pass the review by the Hungarian appointed body, companies must prepare an SDS that is fully based on the CLP standard when submitting the PCN notification.

On January 21, 2025, the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) under the Ministry of Health and Welfare proposed two draft regulations: “Labeling Requirements for Outer Packaging, Containers, Labels, or Package Inserts of Cosmetics” and “Specific Fragrance or Flavor Ingredients Required to Be Labeled in Cosmetics.” These drafts have been released for a 60-day public consultation period to collect feedback from various stakeholders.

CIRS has summarized and analyzed the situation of approved TGAIs in China up to December 24, 2024. In 2024, a total of 167 TGAIs were registered, nearly matching the cumulative number of registrations over the past five years. The chlorantraniliprole got 23 registrations. Herbicides remain the top category without question. Among new active ingredients, microbial pesticides have the highest proportion. Shandong Weifang Rainbow has obtained the largest number of registrations.