Guangzhou Market Supervision Bureau issues new rules for cosmetic packaging quality supervision and spot checks

  On April 23, 2023, the Guangzhou Municipal Market Supervision Administration issued the “Implementation Rules for Quality Supervision and Spot Check of Excessive Packaging of Cosmetics (Revised in January 2023)”, which clarified the sampling methods, inspection basis and determination rules for the supervision and spot check of excessive packaging of cosmetics.        Under the new regulations, the sampling method will randomly select products that have product quality inspection certificates or indicate qualified in other forms, and are recently produced from the products to be sold by the enterprise. The sample size meets the sampling quantity.

  For boxed cosmetics, 4 sets of samples will be drawn, of which 2 sets will be used as inspection samples and the remaining 2 sets will be used as backup samples. Random numbers can generally be generated by methods such as random number tables, random number dice or poker cards.

  The inspection basis is in accordance with GB 23350-2009 “Requirements for Restricting Excessive Packaging of Goods Food and Cosmetics” (products produced before September 1, 2023) and GB 23350-2021 “Requirements for Restricting Excessive Packaging of Goods Food and Cosmetics” (products produced after September 1, 2023).

  It is worth mentioning that in the new regulations, for any document that is dated, all subsequent amendments (excluding errata) or revised versions are not applicable to these rules. For documents that are not dated, the latest version applies to these rules.

  As early as August 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the National Standardization Administration jointly issued a new revised GB 23350—2021 “Requirements for Restricting Excessive Packaging of Goods Food and Cosmetics”. The standard stipulates that the packaging cost of cosmetics should not exceed 20% of the sales price, the packaging layers of cosmetics should not exceed four layers, and the gap rate of cosmetic packaging should be below 25%.

At the same time, the standard also introduced corresponding penalties. If producers and operators fail to comply with mandatory standards for restricting excessive packaging of goods, they shall be ordered by market supervision and management departments or relevant departments at or above the county level to make corrections; if they refuse to make corrections, they shall be fined from RMB 2,000 to RMB 20,000; if the circumstances are serious, they shall be fined from RMB 20,000 to RMB 100,000.