Russia modifies cosmetics regulations

The Customs Union Commission of Russia has adopted new technical regulations Declaration of Conformity to Technical Regulations (DOC TR) for the safety of cosmetic products which will be issued to all Russian registered companies.

According to commission, the new technical regulations will solely place responsibility for safety and quality with the manufacturer which gives a better access to the market by reducing the number of required documents.

The move was taken as the Russian government discarded its Sanitary Government Registration (SGR) as part of a reengineering of the regulations relating to the cosmetic imports.

Earlier, the registration used to confirm that imported products adapted to the sanitary requirements of the Single Customs Union (Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan).

The DOC TR is an attempt to get the countries of the Customs Union to be in tune with European rules from the manufacturing process right down to product labelling.

The commission said the new regulations structure and content are made on the basis on both the European Directive 76/768/EEC and the European Regulations 1223/2009, where the definition of cosmetics and the lists of regulated ingredients are almost similar.

According to the new regulations, the perfumes and cosmetics, which adapt the updated technical regulations and have undergone conformity assessment to these regulations under Article 6, need to contain the EAC conformity mark (for Eurasian Conformity) of the Customs Union, and no longer the Russian Gost-R mark.

The regulation states that products intended for sale in CU states must be marked under the regulations prior to the release of them into the market and need to be adapted to each unit.

The regulation states that products should also possess old documentation and sample requirements, a General Production Quality Control Flowchart, indicating the stages at which quality control takes place is required, in addition to the marking process.

The commission assumes that the new regulation will benefit cosmetic manufacturers as it has the double advantage of making Russian regulation in accordance with EU regulation which ultimately does way with the dual system for achieving compliance.