REACH and Cosmetic Ingredients

Two chemicals regimes after Brexit

REACH, the law on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals, now exists in two versions. EU REACH, Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006, is administered by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). UK REACH, the version assimilated into domestic law from 1 January 2021, applies in Great Britain and is administered by the Health and Safety Executive with the Environment Agency. Northern Ireland remains under EU REACH through the Windsor Framework. The two have the same architecture but separate registration systems, separate data and no mutual recognition.

How REACH applies to cosmetic ingredients

A cosmetic ingredient is a chemical substance, and it falls under REACH in its own right, independently of the Cosmetics Regulation. Anyone who manufactures or imports a substance into the EU or Great Britain at one tonne or more per year must register it with ECHA or the HSE, whether or not it is destined for cosmetic use. The two laws run in parallel rather than one excusing the other: the Cosmetics Regulation governs the safety of the finished product for the consumer, while REACH governs the substance as a chemical across all of its uses.

The interface with cosmetic safety assessment

This is where cosmetic businesses most often misread the position. To avoid duplication, and consistent with the cosmetics animal-testing ban, REACH does not require the human-health endpoints already addressed for the cosmetic use of an ingredient to be repeated for that use. But that exemption is narrow. The environmental endpoints under REACH, and the assessment of worker and industrial exposure during manufacture and handling, still apply in full. An ingredient is therefore not exempt from REACH simply because the finished cosmetic has a CPSR, and the two assessments have to be read together.

Tonnage bands, SVHCs and restrictions

The data required for registration scales with tonnage, in bands of one to ten, ten to one hundred, one hundred to one thousand, and one thousand or more tonnes per year per registrant, with the higher bands demanding more endpoints. Beyond registration, a substance of very high concern can be placed on the candidate list and made subject to authorisation, and any substance can be subject to a restriction limiting or banning particular uses. These apply to cosmetic ingredients like any other, so an ingredient’s REACH status can constrain a formulation independently of the cosmetic annexes.

UK REACH after Brexit

Brexit turned many Great Britain companies into importers under UK REACH, because trade that had been intra-EU movement became importation into GB. Existing EU REACH registrations held by GB entities were grandfathered into UK REACH, and downstream users or distributors who relied on an EU registration could file a Downstream User Import Notification (DUIN) to keep importing. The full transitional registration deadlines, originally set at October 2026, 2028 and 2030 by tonnage and hazard, have been extended to October 2029, 2030 and 2031, pending the Alternative Transitional Registration model (ATRm) being developed by Defra, the HSE and the Environment Agency to reduce the cost of duplicating EU hazard data for the GB market.

Where the brand sits

Most cosmetic brands are downstream users of substances their suppliers have already registered, rather than registrants themselves, so the duty often sits upstream. But a brand that imports raw materials or finished mixtures from outside the EU or Great Britain can itself carry a registration or notification obligation, and that obligation is easy to acquire unknowingly through a change of supplier or a post-Brexit supply route. The first step is always to establish each ingredient’s REACH status.

How we help

We screen each ingredient for its REACH position, whether it is registered, under which regime, by whom in the supply chain, and whether it carries any restriction, authorisation requirement or substance-of-very-high-concern status, and we advise whether the brand itself has a registration or notification duty under EU or UK REACH. We then align that with the cosmetic safety assessment, so the chemical and cosmetic positions are consistent rather than assessed in isolation. REACH-status work is quoted on application. All fees are exclusive of VAT.