Beauty product flyer

The ingredients. Under the Consumer Goods (Cosmetics) Information Standard 2020 the list has to be on the container, or on the product itself where there is no container, and the ingredients run in descending order by volume or mass. There is an alternative form the standard allows: everything at one per cent or more in descending order, then the ingredients under one per cent in any order, then colour additives last. Every supplier in the chain has to comply, and that includes the retailer, not only the maker or the importer. The reason is allergens, since a shopper who reacts to one ingredient can only avoid it if the bottle names it.

The standard makes room for it. Where the container or the product is of a size, shape or nature that prevents ingredient labelling, the information has to be displayed prominently with the products at the point of sale instead. A binder of printed cards at the counter, one card per tester, is a normal way to do that and is what the third flyer describes. The obligation does not vanish with the space, it moves to the shelf, so a sample sachet or a fifteen millilitre travel size still needs its list somewhere a customer can read before buying.

When it starts making therapeutic claims. The cosmetics standard defines a cosmetic as a substance intended for contact with an external part of the body for purposes such as cleansing it, perfuming it, protecting it or changing its appearance, and it expressly excludes therapeutic goods and the hand sanitisers regulated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Say that a cream treats, cures or prevents a condition and the product is being presented as something else entirely, with a different regulator, a different approval path and a different advertising rulebook. That is why no treating and no curing appear on the third flyer as house rules rather than as modesty.

Not by the ingredients standard, which is about ingredients. A batch code and a date of minimum durability are ordinary industry practice and are required in some export markets, so most Australian brands print them anyway, and the packs flyer lists them as things this shop puts on the box rather than as legal minimums. The difference is worth knowing, because a customer who assumes a date is mandatory reads a missing one as a warning. Labelling is policed by several agencies at once, with the ACCC responsible for consumer product safety and information standards, so accuracy on a carton is never optional even where a particular line is voluntary.