How to submit cosmetic product notification in Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales)

As you probably know, one of the prerequisites to supplying cosmetic products on the market (be it in the European Union or Great Britain), is making a notification via a web-based portal.

Since Brexit, two notifications are required when a cosmetic product is to be placed on the market in the United Kingdom, but only one notification is needed when supplying cosmetics only in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales, but not in Northern Ireland).

In this post, we focus on submitting a notification on the GB portal only.

Cosmetic product notification

Submitting cosmetic product notifications via the GB portal is fast and easy and skipping this step is not really worth the risk, as fines for not complying with this step can be unlimited or you can face a prison term of up to 3 months.

There are a couple of important dates to bear in mind before submitting.

• Existing products on the GB market: For cosmetic products available to GB consumers that have already been notified using the EU’s Cosmetic Products Notification Portal (CPNP) before 1 January 2021, you will have until 31 March 2021 to notify your cosmetic products using the UK’s Submit cosmetic product notifications service. The deadline for these has now passed, so I hope you had a chance to submit the notification.

• New products for the GB market: For cosmetic products that have not been notified on the EU’s CPNP and are being placed on the GB market after 31 December 2020, you will need to notify these products using the UK’s Submit cosmetic product notifications service before they can be placed on the GB market.

Let's look at what information is required and how to submit the notification.

Submitting notification in 3 easy steps:

Step 1: Head to the link below to register for the cosmetic notification portal, to inform the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) about cosmetic products available to consumers in Great Britain (GB).

https://submit.cosmetic-product-notifications.service.gov.uk/

The submission must be made by the ‘responsible person’. A responsible person, who must be established in the UK, can be either:

• the manufacturer

• 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)

When signing up, make sure you opt-in for the email news and notifications. These are very useful since the notification portal is being frequently modified and you don't want to miss out on the important updates.

Step 2: Have the following information ready before making cosmetic product notification submission:

• the category and name of the cosmetic product

• the name of the responsible person

• where the Product Information File (PIF) is kept

• details of a named contact for urgent enquiries

• details of any nanomaterials the cosmetic product contains

• details of any carcinogenic, mutagenic, or toxic for reproduction (CMR) substances the cosmetic product contains

• the chemical details of substances

• a summary of the ingredients

• an image of the product’s label. You can upload up to 10 images. Each file can be up to 30MB and must be a JPG, PNG or PDF.

• a photograph of the cosmetic product packaging

• most products can be submitted using frame formulations

Step 3: Check the information provided careful, as once submitted there is no 'edit' option and you'll need to contact customer services to update these.

You can add team members to the notification portal if several people in your company submit/check notifications.

Please get in touch via info@moleculeregulatoryservices.co.uk for further information on the above or other cosmetic regulation topics and cosmetic product safety reports compliant with the EU and UK regulations.

We'd love to help! #cosmeticproductsafetyreport #cosmeticsafetyassessment #cosmeticregulation #compliantcosmetics