Cosmetics
Selling cosmetics in Australia works differently. Ingredients are regulated as industrial chemicals by AICIS under the Industrial Chemicals Act 2019, labelling and safety sit with the ACCC, and any therapeutic claim can push your product into Therapeutic Good Administration (TGA) territory.
At Taylored Consultancy Ltd, we make cosmetic compliance clear and stress-free. We help you get your ingredients and labelling right, and stay firmly on the cosmetic side of the line - or guide you across it if your product makes therapeutic claims.
Clearing the path to market -
regulatory and quality expertise that gets your cosmetics safe, compliant, and ready for market.
The first question in Australia is whether your product is a cosmetic or a therapeutic good. We assess your formulation and claims to confirm which framework applies.
We check your formulation against local requirements and any concentration limits or banned substances.
We review your labelling against the ACCC's mandatory cosmetics ingredient labelling standard to ensure your ingredient list and information are correct.
We review your claims to keep them cosmetic - and properly evidenced - so you don't inadvertently stray into therapeutic territory.
We help you assemble safety documentation to support your product, drawing on ISO 22716 GMP and existing safety data.
Regulations can feel like a headache, but they don't have to be. We make sure you're covered, compliant, and ready to sell - without unnecessary delays or legal pitfalls.
ISO 22716 - Cosmetics Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP)
ISO 9001 - General quality management
ISO 14001 - Environmental management (where relevant)
It depends on what the product does and what you say it does. Australia draws the line based on function and claims, so a moisturiser stays a cosmetic, while the same formulation making anti-inflammatory or acne-treatment claims can tip into TGA therapeutic goods territory. We carry out a boundary review early on to confirm which pathway applies, since it changes almost everything about compliance.
You need your ingredients covered under AICIS, Australia's industrial chemicals regulator, rather than the finished cosmetic itself being registered. Under the Industrial Chemicals Act 2019, every chemical in your formulation needs to be either listed on the Australian inventory or introduced through the correct AICIS category, so ingredient-level compliance is where the real work happens before a product can be sold.
Claims that suggest a product treats, prevents or cures a condition, alters body function, or has a therapeutic effect, such as "reduces inflammation" or "treats acne," move a product out of cosmetic territory and into TGA-regulated therapeutic goods. Cosmetic claims need to stay limited to cleansing, beautifying, protecting or maintaining appearance, so wording matters as much as the formulation itself.
AICIS requires that every industrial chemical in a cosmetic formulation, including the actives and many "inert" ingredients, is either already listed on Australia's chemical inventory or introduced under the appropriate category, with reporting obligations that scale with the risk and volume involved. New or unlisted ingredients typically need more lead time, so checking your formulation against AICIS early avoids launch delays.
There's no blanket legal requirement to hold ISO 22716 certification to sell cosmetics in Australia, but manufacturing to that standard is the accepted way of demonstrating the safety evidence regulators and retailers expect. In practice, most brands assemble their safety documentation with ISO 22716 principles behind it, since it's the recognised benchmark for cosmetic GMP internationally.
Cosmetic labels in Australia need to meet ACCC mandatory ingredient labelling requirements, listing ingredients in the correct format along with other mandatory consumer information, and must stay consistent with whatever claims and classification you've settled on. Getting the classification right first matters, because a label that's fine for a cosmetic can look very different once therapeutic wording is involved.
Still have questions? Contact us and we'll be happy to help.
