EU vs UK Cosmetic Regulation: Key Divergences Post-Brexit
For most of 2021-2024, EU and UK cosmetic rules ran in lockstep. That's starting to change. Here are the practical divergences brands selling into both markets need to understand.
When the UK left the EU in January 2021, Westminster's approach to retained EU law was pragmatic: keep the rulebook working, change as little as possible, and give the industry time to adapt. For cosmetics specifically, the UK Cosmetics Regulation is essentially a cut-and-paste of the EU Cosmetics Regulation 1223/2009 — same Annexes, same allergen list, same labelling requirements.
For three years that "snapshot" approach worked fine. Brands selling into both markets could prepare a single dossier and tweak the labels.
That phase is ending. Both jurisdictions are now actively diverging — sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in significant ones. This article walks through the divergences that matter most for fragrance brands.
The notification systems: CPNP vs SCPN
Before any cosmetic product is placed on either market, the Responsible Person must notify it.
EU side: Cosmetic Product Notification Portal (CPNP), operated by the European Commission. Mandatory under Article 13 of EU 1223/2009. The notification captures the frame formulation, label, CMR substances, and the Responsible Person details.
UK side: Submit Cosmetic Product Notification (SCPN), operated by the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) under DBT. Functionally similar to CPNP but technically separate.
The critical thing to understand is that notifications do not transfer. A product notified to CPNP before Brexit is not automatically notified for the GB market. Even if the formulation is identical, the dossier must be submitted separately to SCPN.
This caught a lot of brands out in 2021. If you're selling into both markets, you need parallel notifications and you need to maintain them in parallel — when you reformulate, both systems need updating.
The same goes for the Responsible Person. The EU RP must be established in the EU/EEA. The UK RP must be established in the UK. If you used to have a single EU-based RP covering both markets, you now need a UK RP as well. Many EU brands appoint a UK-based agent specifically for this purpose.
REACH: divergence in slow motion
EU REACH and UK REACH started as identical regulations — UK REACH is literally a copy of EU REACH with "EU" replaced by "UK" in many places. But the substance registration databases are now separate.
EU REACH is operated by ECHA and continues to expand. New SVHCs are added to the Candidate List twice a year (June and January typically), Annex XVII restrictions are updated, the Authorisation List grows.
UK REACH is operated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). UK REACH has adopted the existing EU substance dossiers as a starting point but has its own decision-making process. So far the UK has broadly mirrored EU decisions but the gap is widening:
- Registration deadlines are different. UK-specific registration windows phase in through 2026-2030.
- SVHC additions sometimes lag the EU. The UK has added all the pre-Brexit SVHCs but later additions need to be separately reviewed under UK REACH.
- Annex XVII restrictions in some cases have not been mirrored. Be careful about assuming EU restrictions apply to UK products.
For fragrance brands, the practical impact is that you now need to check substance status in two databases, not one. If a substance is listed under EU REACH SVHC but not yet under UK REACH SVHC, your obligations differ on each side of the channel.
CLP: aligned for now
The EU CLP Regulation (1272/2008) and the UK CLP regime (a retained version of the same) are aligned at the time of writing. Both use the same hazard statements, the same pictograms, the same harmonised classifications via the EU's ATP (Adaptation to Technical Progress) updates.
However, the UK is no longer part of the EU's harmonisation process. New EU ATPs go through Westminster as separate statutory instruments before they apply in GB. There's typically a lag of several months — sometimes longer.
Practical impact: an ingredient newly classified as a Category 1B reproductive toxicant in the EU might not yet be classified in the UK at the moment you're placing your product on the market. That doesn't mean it's "safe to use in the UK" — your safety assessor still has to consider all available evidence — but the automatic regulatory consequences (Article 15 cosmetic ban, REACH SVHC) won't yet apply.
Conversely, you can sometimes find substances that were classified before Brexit and remain classified in both regimes, where the EU has subsequently updated the classification but the UK hasn't.
Allergen list expansion
The EU expanded the fragrance allergen list from 26 to 81 substances in Regulation (EU) 2023/1545, with mandatory effect from 31 July 2026.
The UK has not yet adopted the expanded list. OPSS has indicated alignment is likely but no statutory instrument is in force. As of 2026, the UK list is still 26 allergens.
If you're selling into both markets, you essentially have two options:
1. Maintain separate label artwork for the EU and GB markets, each with the appropriate allergen declarations.
2. Apply the EU list to both — declare to the broader EU list everywhere. This is over-compliance for the UK but operationally simpler. Most brands we work with are taking this route.
Northern Ireland: a special case
Under the Windsor Framework (which replaced the Northern Ireland Protocol), goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland follow specific rules. For cosmetics:
- Products placed on the NI market must comply with the EU Cosmetics Regulation (because NI is treated as part of the EU single market for goods).
- Products placed on the GB market must comply with the UK Cosmetics Regulation.
So a brand selling the same product in London and Belfast may need to notify it to both SCPN and CPNP, and may need to apply the expanded allergen list to the NI version while still using the 26-allergen list on the GB version.
In practice, most brands treat NI as "EU rules apply" and align their NI artwork with their EU stock.
CMR substances: mostly aligned
Both regimes use Article 15 of their respective Cosmetics Regulations to ban CMR Cat 1A, 1B, and 2 substances by default. The triggers are tied to CLP classification, so as long as CLP stays aligned, the CMR bans stay aligned too.
The Lilial (BMHCA) ban is a good example: classified Cat 1B in the EU, banned via Annex II in EU 2021/1902, mirrored in the UK shortly after. The mirror happened on the UK side via a separate statutory instrument but with effectively the same date.
Watch for this pattern: an EU Annex II addition is usually followed by a UK mirror within 6-12 months, but you can't assume the dates will be identical.
Practical recommendations
For brands selling into both markets:
1. Maintain separate notification dossiers in CPNP and SCPN. Keep them in sync when you reformulate.
2. Have a UK RP alongside your EU RP. Don't try to use the same entity for both unless they're physically established in both jurisdictions.
3. Run compliance checks against both rule sets for every formula. Don't assume EU compliance equals UK compliance — and vice versa.
4. Track the divergence on REACH SVHC. If a substance is restricted only in one jurisdiction, you have to handle it accordingly.
5. Be ready for the allergen list divergence until the UK aligns. If you use a single label artwork strategy, default to the EU (broader) list.
6. Watch the OPSS consultation page at gov.uk for proposed changes to the UK Cosmetics Regulation. UK-specific divergences are usually flagged in advance.
Looking ahead
The trend is clear: divergence will keep increasing. The UK has signalled an intent to take a more "innovation-friendly" stance on chemicals regulation in some areas, while the EU is broadly moving toward stricter limits. Brands that operate across both will need to maintain dual-track compliance permanently.
The good news is that the structure of both regimes is the same — same Annex layout, same labelling logic, same notification model — so the operational overhead is mostly about running the same checks twice, not about learning two completely different systems.
Check your formulas against these requirements instantly with ScentShield. Our 9-checkpoint compliance engine runs IFRA, CLP, REACH, allergens, PCN, and 4 more checkpoints across every market in seconds. Start a free trial →