UK Cosmetics Notified: Compliant from Day One

When the United Kingdom left the European Union, it established its own regulatory framework for cosmetics separate from EU Regulation 1223/2009. Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) now operates under the UK Cosmetics Regulation, which requires cosmetic products to be notified through the UK SCPN portal before they can be placed on the market. Products notified under the EU CPNP system are not automatically valid for the UK market - separate UK notifications are required. Northern Ireland remains aligned with EU regulations under the Windsor Framework, creating a dual-compliance requirement for brands selling across the entire UK. Our team navigates this complexity, managing UK notifications through SCPN and EU notifications through CPNP as part of an integrated UK compliance service.

The UK Cosmetics Regulation requires every cosmetic product placed on the Great Britain market to have a named Responsible Person established within Great Britain. This is not merely a documentation requirement - the Responsible Person bears legal accountability for ensuring the product's safety, maintaining the product information file, cooperating with enforcement authorities, and responding to safety concerns. For non-UK brands, this obligation cannot be fulfilled without a UK-based entity or a designated UK Responsible Person service. We provide Responsible Person services for cosmetics brands selling in Great Britain, assuming the legal obligations associated with this role and managing the day-to-day compliance activities it entails. Our Responsible Person service includes maintaining product information files, ensuring SCPN notifications are current and accurate, responding to OPSS and Trading Standards inquiries, and managing product safety communications when safety issues are identified.

The SCPN portal requires specific product data submitted in the correct format for each cosmetic product placed on the Great Britain market. Notification data includes the product name, product function category, frame formulation or full ingredient list in INCI nomenclature, the nanomaterial declaration where applicable, and the Responsible Person's details. Our notification team prepares SCPN submissions from your product formulation data, ensuring ingredient names are correctly expressed in INCI format and product categories are accurately assigned. We submit notifications before products are placed on the market - notification before first sale is a legal requirement, not a best-effort target. For existing brands that have been selling without SCPN notifications in place, we prioritize submissions and implement corrective procedures to resolve the non-compliance gap.

UK cosmetics labels must comply with specific requirements including product name and function, list of ingredients in INCI order, net content, conditions of use and warnings, batch code, date of minimum durability or period after opening, country of manufacture, and the Responsible Person's name and UK address. Post-Brexit, products must use the UK address of the Responsible Person rather than an EU address, a common source of enforcement action against brands that did not update labels when Brexit took effect. We conduct label compliance reviews for every product before UK launch, checking every mandatory element against current UK Cosmetics Regulation requirements. We also monitor OPSS guidance updates and emerging enforcement priorities, alerting clients to label changes required by regulatory developments before products are affected.