South Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety Prohibit the Use of Five Ingredients in Hair Dyes

To strengthen the management of cosmetics and safeguard the people’s health, five ingredients, including o-aminophenol, m-Phenylenediamine HCl, m-Phenylenediamine, Catechol, Pyrogallol were added into the list of prohibited ingredients for cosmetics, according to the revised draft on the Cosmetic Safety Standards and Other Related Provisions released by the South Ministry Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS).

According to Article 8 of the Cosmetics Law, MFDS shall regularly conduct hazard assessment on the hair dye ingredients and results show that the above five hair dye ingredients are likely to have genotoxic hazards.

Since 2020, MFDS has conducted regular hazard assessment on 352 restricted ingredients such as preservatives, sunscreen, hair dyes, among which 76 ingredients are hair dyes. According to the plan, MFDS will conduct regular hazard assessment on the designated ingredients in turns, and will issue relevant revision notices according to the specific situation. MFDS will take measures to prohibit the use of hazardous ingredients in cosmetics within six months after the issuance of the revision notice. 

The five substances are all included in China’s List of Prohibited Cosmetic Ingredients, if you would like to know more info about the five substance, please refer to the Chinese Cosmetic Ingredient Regulatory Database (China CosIng) developed by CIRS.

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