New Russian Cosmetic Regulation Coming Soon

by Ramzia Lefebvre

New Technical Regulation on the safety of cosmetic products will come into force on July 1, 2012, and will be applicable within the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Access to the Russian market should be simplified, as with this new regulation, the number of required documents will be reduced.

For cosmetic manufacturers and exporters, the Technical Regulation TR TC 009/2011 approved on Sept. 23, 2011 by CU Commission’s Decree n° 799, provides a double advantage: harmonizing Russian regulation with the regulation in force in the EU and ending "the dual compliance system." Furthermore, this technical regulation also includes Belarus and Kazakhstan, two other members of the Customs Union.

In particular, its aim is to harmonize the requirements on cosmetic products for the member countries of the Customs Union and get them more aligned with European rules from the manufacturing process to product labeling. The content and the structure has been drafted on both the European Directive 76/768/EEC and the European Regulations 1223/2009. All cosmetics categories are now grouped under a single document. As with the EU, the definition of cosmetics and the lists of regulated ingredients are almost identical. Moreover, the text of the Technical Regulation also includes a definition of nano-materials identical to the European regulation, the definition of “manufacturer" also is completed by the notion of “responsible for placing on the market" and finally the text refers to the GMP (good manufacturing practice).

However, some rules vary from the European ones, such as maintaining the obligation to establish the product compliance by a third party and also some the other technical discrepancies.

The key to export to Russia successfully is the ability to master all these aspects and anticipate changes and risks linking to them.

All cosmetic manufacturers exporting their products into Russia are expecting simplification of exportation rules and regulation requirements. The new technical regulation should simplify procedure. However, exporters have to be prudent as the experience has shown that changes don’t always mean simplification, as it has been the case with the GOST R declaration of conformity in 2010.

In practice, for most products, it will only be required to provide the Declaration of Conformity to the Technical Regulations from July 2012. Only 13 product categories representing a potential risk for consumers such as artificial tanning products, skin whitening, cosmetics for children, products containing nano-components, etc., will continue to be subject to Registration as a single document.

Both, the Declaration and the Registration documents will be valid indefinitely and on the whole territory of the Customs Union. Conversely, the requirements for two documents were brought into line with the most demanding conditions, those applying to existing Registrations.

Warning: Products certified according to the requirements of the technical regulations should bear the EAC conformity mark (for Eurasian Conformity) of the Customs Union, and no longer the Russian Gost-R mark.

Ramzia Lefebvre is the technical manager for Russia certification for Intertek, which offers both cosmetic product and export market expertise through its health & beauty technical expert, and is a key player in export certification.