Cosmetics legislation and cosmetics registration in Canada

Canada

Applicable legislation

Cosmetics sold in Canada are regulated by Health Canada, which monitors production and distribution in several sectors. Cosmetic products placed on the Canadian market must comply with the Food and Drugs Act, with the Cosmetic Regulation as well as the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act.

What type of products are cosmetics?

The Food and Drugs Act provides a definition of a cosmetic product in Canada. Cosmetic products include “any substance or mixture of substances, manufactured, sold or represented for use in cleansing, improving or altering the complexion, skin, hair or teeth and includes deodorants and perfumes”. This includes cosmetics used by professional aesthetic services, bulk-bought institutional products (for example, hand soap in schools) and handmade cosmetics sold at craft sales or from home-based businesses.

As in most countries, the classification of the product can often depend on the claims made about its performance and function.

Requirements

The most important requirement is that cosmetic products sold in Canada are manufactured, prepared, preserved, packed and stored under sanitary conditions and are, therefore, safe for use by the consumers.

When used as intended, a cosmetic product must not pose a risk to consumers. The safety of the product must be determined but the legislation does not specifically prescribe how the safety of the product is proven and demonstrated; that is the responsibility of the product manufacturer.

Health Canada maintains quite an extensive list of ingredients that cosmetic products should not contain, can contain only up to a certain maximum concentration or can contain under certain conditions along with the warnings that have to be displayed about the use of such ingredients. This list is referred to as the Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist. However, this list contains only ingredients used intentionally, it does not include unintentional ingredients.

Cosmetic product labels must conform to the specific requirements for labelling that can be found in the Food and Drugs Act, the Cosmetic Regulation, Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act and the Hazardous Product Act. Special attention must be paid to the language used on the labels as in most cases at least some parts of the label also have to be written in French.

There is no pre-market registration for cosmetics that would lead to an official approval for sales in Canada but all cosmetic products placed on the Canadian market, whether manufactured in Canada or abroad, have to be notified to Health Canada using the Cosmetic Notification Form (CNF) within 10 days of being placed on the market. Failure to do so may result in a product being denied entry into Canada or being removed from sale. The information that needs to be provided on the CNF includes, among other things, the product identity, the product function, labelling for certain types of products, a list of ingredients and their concentrations, the product category, the name and address of the manufacturer and the distributor, etc.

Services offered

Product classification

Formula review to ensure compliance with the Health Canada regulations

Labelling review

Label translation into French

Toxicological risk assessment

Cosmetic Notification Form preparation and submission

And what do they say about us?

Pharmaplast began to work with CE.way almost one year ago. CE.way is our cosmetics consultant who look after compilation of PIF, safety assessments and CPNP notifications. In addition to this, CE.way is our European representative as our company is not located in Europe. Working with CE.way has been a joy so far. Their replies are very swift and Mr Tadej is very cooperative, helpful and with a deep knowledge about the cosmetics regulations. In addition to this, CE.way is very cost effective company in comparison with their European counterparts. For all the above reasons, I really recommend CE.way to other cosmetic product manufacturers.

Mena, Egypt

Pharmaplast

We were looking for a stand-alone service, not too sure what to expect... The professionalism, the assistance and the responsiveness were very much appreciated, amongst the best we have ever experienced.

Carol, Switzerland

Alpure

We are a small manufacturing company located in the US. We recently used CE.way Regulatory Consultants to help guide us through the Cosmetic regulatory changes that have taken place in the EU. They were instrumental in helping us understand the new laws and streamline the entire process. I would highly recommend their services.

Lena and Clay, USA

IBP

We didn't have any knowledge about the registration process for cosmetics in EU and were very concerned about this, but we met CE.way and they gave us whole packages of consultation and support. It was really helpful and we could do the registration without any problem. We will definitely ask CE.way again when we have new product to register in EU.

Masa, Japan

Nash Corporation

We used Tadej and CE.way for EU compliance with our products. He was very helpful and worked directly with our lab which made the process much easier for us. Tadej worked with me directly on all of our products to make sure I had the right documents. I really liked the attention to detail and how I could work with the owner of the company directly. I would highly recommend their services.

Steve, Canada

Curly Hair Solutions

Tadej from CE.way is the best consultant I've ever worked with. It's a great luck that we've found him. He is knowledgeable, fast, helpful & always ready to answer a million questions that we have. We had no exposure to cosmetics market before, so we didn't even know where to start. So he helped us to do EVERYTHING. The quality of service for the amount of money that we pay is absolutely the best! BIG THANK YOU to you Tadej & we'll definitely keep working with you!

Natalia, USA

Hi Tadej, Thank you for your highly professional approach, extremely helpful information and advice on getting our product registration under way and completed in record time! What we thought to be a very tiresome and laborious task was made quick and simple. Thank you again! The Thermitek Team.

Rene, Greece

Funkitup

It's been our first time lodging an application for EU Compliance. Although a big task, Tadej from CE.way made it as painless as possible. His patience and help were invaluable. He was so responsive and was available at all times to work with myself and my manufacturers. We now have our first round of product successfully assessed and notified. I will be placing our next round asap for notification, I can't recommend CE.way highly enough, thanks Tadej - Heather Spierings Eye of Horus Cosmetics.

Heather, Australia

RA Cosmetics

CE.way offers professional and reliable service. The team is diligent and extremely helpful throughout the whole process. We are very satisfied the way the work was executed. We definitely recommend CE.way to others.

Tamar, USA

Nuvision

CE.way made the whole EU process easy to understand. They were very responsive to all our needs.

James, USA

Eufora

This is a major investment for a small business like ours and it took me a few years to find a company (CE.way) that I felt comfortable working with! That speaks volume to my appreciation of the quality of your communications with me.

Vivian, USA

VB cosmetics

Our company had a great experience with CE.way. They were very organized and provided us with a detailed roadmap of exactly what we needed to gather on our end for them to put together our Product Information File and complete the notification process for the EU. They continued to help us along the way, providing quick feedback on any changes we needed to make to a document for it to work and reminders on what we still needed to provide. They are organized, knowledgeable, fast, and attentive; I would absolutely recommend them to any companies looking to get their products approved in the EU.

Cyrus, USA

SBBM

CE.way's assistance was tremendous, helping our company navigate the EU cosmetic regulation and efficiently get products to market.

Mike, USA

Inverness

Our cooperation with Tadej and his team at CE.way Consultants aimed to assist us to launch our products in UK for the first time. Tadej is a very hands on and always quick with his responses. The process was smooth and beyond our expectations in terms of cost savings and the speed with which we accomplished our goal. We look forward to working with them again.

Ruta, UK

Art de Parfum

We are really appreciate your speedy replies and clear and understandable guide. As there are a lot of differences in cosmetic regulations between Japan and EU first we thought that it would be hard to make all necessary procedures for our products compliance with EU laws, but thanks for your prompt support, all procedures were made smoothly. And now we are successfully selling MT Metatron in EU. We also thinking to expand our other brands in EU and when we start - definitely will ask your company for assist again.

Olga, Japan

MT Cosmetics, Inc.

After a less than pleasurable experience with another company, we found CE.way and we can honestly say that it could not be more beneficial for our brand. The whole notification process is made as easy as possible. The people at CE.way are all very accessible, knowledgeable and always ready to answer questions. CE.way is a great asset to our company and we are grateful for all the help and support we receive. Navigating through all rules and regulations alone is impossible, with the team at CE.way, we have the best support that we could ask for. Highly recommended in all aspects from their support to their reliable service!

Daniel, USA

NCLA