Cosmetics, medicines and food are three kinds of special commodities, which are directly related to the health of consumers. Since the reform and opening up, the compliance of cosmetic products in China has been greatly improved, and the quality of some products has reached or is close to the international advanced level. Compared with the international advanced level, there are still some low grade, poor quality, good difficult to win, bad difficult to get rid of the phenomenon of cosmetics in our country, which has a great impact on economic development and the improvement of people's quality of life, and restricts the improvement of the overall competitiveness of our national cosmetics brands. Cosmetic compliance includes the compliance of product ingredients and contents, as well as the compliance of product packaging and labeling. As far as the operation of cosmetics enterprises is concerned, the compliance of cosmetics packaging and labels is as important as the compliance of product ingredients and contents. If there is non-compliance with the cosmetic identification label, it will cause the product to be listed on time and delay the market sales time. The occurrence of product sales will not only cause significant losses to brand goodwill, but also lead to major economic losses such as product removal, product recall, waste of channel entry fees, scrap of packaging materials, consumer complaints and disputes, and administrative penalties. Therefore, cosmetics companies should attach great importance to product packaging, labeling compliance issues. Especially in the current environment where supervision is increasingly in place and professional "anti-counterfeiting" is active, brand cosmetics companies should pay more attention to the compliance of product packaging and labeling. Jiao Hanwei, lawyer of Shanghai Guohillhouse Law Firm, will discuss the compliance issues of product packaging and labeling of cosmetics enterprises from a legal perspective based on practical experience for reference by operators.

Cosmetics should not be over-packaged

Excessive packaging refers to the packaging that exceeds the appropriate packaging functional requirements, and the packaging void ratio, the number of packaging layers, and the packaging cost exceed the necessary degree. Standards for excessive packaging vary from product to product. The packaging of the product is necessary for the transportation, storage and sales of the product, and only after packaging can prevent the product from being damaged or deteriorated in the circulation process, and it will be better sold. However, in recent years, the problem of excessive packaging of commodities in China has become increasingly prominent, which not only wastes resources, aggravates environmental pollution, but also damages the interests of consumers. With the enhancement of consumers' consciousness of rational consumption, the problem of excessive packaging of products has increasingly attracted the attention of society. In the context of the increasing trend of excessive packaging of commodities, cosmetics were once the hardest hit area of excessive packaging. In view of the current situation of excessive packaging of cosmetics in China, in order to promote the consumption of cosmetics production enterprises in China to reduce the consumption of commodities, promote the construction of resource-saving and environmentally friendly society, the national mandatory standard "Limiting excessive packaging requirements of commodities - Food and Cosmetics" (GB 23350-2009) issued by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the National Standards Commission. The standard has made clear restrictions on the packaging voidage, cost and number of layers of cosmetics, respectively, and put forward requirements for cosmetics to limit excessive packaging, as follows: (1) cosmetics packaging voidage limits. Packaging void ratio refers to the ratio of the volume of unnecessary space in the packaging of goods sold to the volume of the packaging of goods sold. The gap ratio of cosmetic packaging shall not exceed 50%. (2) Cosmetic packaging cost limits. The total cost of all packaging costs other than the initial packaging shall not exceed 20% of the sales price of the commodity, in which the sales price of the commodity is determined by the contract sales price signed by the manufacturer and the seller of the commodity or the normal market sales price of the commodity; (3) Limit the number of cosmetic packaging layers. The number of packaging layers refers to the number of layers of packaging that completely wrap the product. The number of cosmetic packaging layers shall not exceed 3 layers. In summary, the outer packaging of cosmetics should meet the above three requirements, otherwise it is unqualified products.

The name of cosmetics should be standardized

The name of cosmetics is one of the most direct and important information carriers for consumers to understand cosmetic information, and it must be scientific and standardized. In order to ensure the scientific and standardized name of cosmetics, cosmetics manufacturers must follow the "Regulations on the Naming of Cosmetics" and "Guidelines on the Naming of Cosmetics" when naming cosmetics, and cosmetics companies should carefully choose cosmetics naming terms. The name of cosmetics shall generally be composed of trademark name, generic name and attribute name; The name order is generally trademark name, generic name, and attribute name. The trademark names of cosmetics are divided into registered trademarks and unregistered trademarks. The generic name of cosmetics shall be accurate and objective, and may be a text indicating the main raw materials of the product or describing the use and use of the product; The attribute name of a cosmetic product should indicate the true physical character or appearance of the product. For example, in Hanshu sunscreen products, "Hanshu" is a registered trademark name, "sunscreen" is a common name, and "cream" is an attribute name. When the trademark name, generic name, and attribute name are the same, other content that needs to be marked can be indicated after the attribute name, including color or color number, sun protection index, odor, applicable hair type, skin type, or specific people. In addition, the naming of cosmetics must comply with the following principles: (1) comply with the provisions of relevant national laws, regulations, rules and normative documents; (2) Concise, easy to understand, in line with the Chinese language habits; (3) Not to mislead or deceive consumers. The Chinese name of imported cosmetics shall correspond to the foreign name as far as possible; It can use free translation, transliteration or combined translation of meaning and sound, generally free translation. The following contents are prohibited in the naming of cosmetics:
(1) false, exaggerated and absolutist words;
(2) medical terms, words that express or imply medical effects and effects;
(3) Names of medical celebrities;
(4) words and local dialects that are difficult for consumers to understand;
(5) vulgar or superstitious words;
(6) the name of the approved drug;
(7) Foreign letters, Chinese pinyin, numbers, symbols, etc.; However, the sun protection index, color number, series number, or registered trademark, and must use foreign letters, symbols to indicate the exception; Registered trademarks and the use of foreign letters and symbols must be explained in Chinese in the manual, except for conventional and customary use, such as vitamin C.
(8) Other misleading words.

Cosmetics label information should be complete

According to China's "Regulations on the Management of Cosmetics Labeling", "Instructions for Consumer Use - General Label for Cosmetics" and other relevant provisions: China's cosmetics label refers to the text, numbers, symbols, patterns and instructions placed in the sales package of cosmetics pasted, connected or printed on the sales package. Cosmetics label is an important component of cosmetics, which records a lot of cosmetics information, and is one of the important information carriers for communication between cosmetics enterprises and consumers. By reading the contents recorded in the cosmetics label, consumers can understand the important cosmetic information such as the efficacy, ingredients, shelf life and precautions for the use of cosmetics, so as to provide information basis for consumer behavior; By reading the content of the cosmetics label, consumers can also know the manufacturer and contact address of cosmetics, and can directly contact them in the event of consumer disputes to protect the rights and interests of consumers. At the same time, the cosmetics label is also one of the important channels for the government quality supervision department to obtain product information. The cosmetics quality supervision department can grasp the specific situation of cosmetics in a timely manner through the information of the producer, origin, ingredients, standards, and license number recorded in the cosmetics label. Based on the importance of cosmetics labels, cosmetics companies must carry out standardized labeling. In order to better protect consumers' right to know, China's "Product Quality Law", "Cosmetics Labeling Regulations" and "Consumer Instructions - Cosmetics General Label" and other laws and regulations stipulate that cosmetics labels must be marked with the following content: Product name, producer name and address, actual production and processing place, net content, all ingredients list of cosmetics, shelf life, implementation standards, quality inspection certificate, license information and precautions. However, there are three exceptions: (1) cosmetics that have not yet entered circulation can be exempted from labeling the above content. (2) Cosmetics that are free for consumers to use and have corresponding labels (such as gifts, non-sale products, etc.) can only be marked with the name of the cosmetics, the name and address of the producer, and shelf life information, and other contents can be exempted from labeling. (3) For products with a net content of no more than 15g or 15mL, only the name of the cosmetics, the name of the producer, the net content, the shelf life and the list of the full ingredients of the cosmetics need to be marked, and other contents can be exempted from labeling; At the same time, the cosmetic ingredient list can also be marked in other explanatory materials. Therefore, the information on the mandatory labeling of cosmetics must be marked complete and accurate, and must not be omitted, otherwise the product is unqualified cosmetics. For other non-statutory mandatory labeling information, cosmetic enterprises may decide whether to label it according to business needs.

Cosmetics label information should be legal

As mentioned above, the information on the label of cosmetics must be complete. In addition to complete legal information, the information on cosmetic labels must also be legal. The legality of cosmetics labels can be understood in a broad sense and a narrow sense. In the narrow sense, the legitimacy of cosmetics label information means that the indicator information complies with the requirements of cosmetic industry regulations such as the Cosmetic Hygiene Supervision Regulations, such as the use of medical terms; In a broad sense, the legality of cosmetics label information is that the indicator note information must meet the requirements of the cosmetics industry regulations, but also meet the requirements of the trademark law, advertising law, patent law, anti-unfair competition law and other laws. The legality of cosmetics label information discussed in this section mainly refers to the legal category in a broad sense, which is also the content that is most easily ignored by the product copy reviewers of cosmetics enterprises when reviewing the product copy, and is the major legal risk that most cosmetics enterprises generally face in product identification information. For example, is the product packaging identical or similar to other people's design patents? Is the logo used in the product name or product family name a registered trademark of another person? Does the label information contain unfair competition information that devalues competing products? Once cosmetics trigger the above risks, it will not only lead to losses such as product removal, but also cause legal disputes such as infringement, which will bring great business difficulties to the company. At present, many cosmetics companies are responsible for cosmetics label review in technical departments such as research and development. Many technicians can review cosmetics labels from a narrow perspective based on the requirements of cosmetic technical specifications, but it is difficult for them to conduct a broad legitimacy review of cosmetics labels from the perspective of trademark law, patent law, anti-unfair competition law, and advertising law. Because most technical personnel have relatively low legal literacy, it is worth exploring the idea that the responsibility for label review falls under the technical department and not through the legal department. The reasonable system design should be the label compliance audit work by the Marketing Department, legal department and R & D center three departments to complete. Domestic cosmetics enterprises should pay attention to this problem.

Cosmetics as a fashion consumer goods, appropriate packaging not only in the transport link or storage link to the best protection of the product, but also in the sales link to improve the beauty of the product and the market value of the product, and then directly affect the market sales of the product. As an important component of the outer packaging of cosmetics, cosmetics companies should consider the cost, process, function, aesthetic, compliance and other perspectives, especially the legal components of cosmetic packaging must ensure that they meet the requirements of laws and regulations. Otherwise, all business efforts are zero.

Jiao Hanwei

Chief partner and lawyer of Shanghai Guohillhouse Law Firm

Have more than 10 years of legal service experience and more than 5 years of cosmetics business experience, familiar with law, familiar with business, He is good at providing enterprises with legal counsel, contract review, brand management, business compliance, business negotiation, intellectual property management, tax planning, equity transfer, corporate structure design, equity incentive, investment and financing, restructuring and merger, dispute resolution and other solutions for the whole stage of enterprise development from the perspective of law and business operation.