If you supply products for sale on Amazon, you must comply with all federal, state, and local Amazon laws and policies that apply to those products. First of all, this applies to beauty products and cosmetics! So how do you sell beauty products on Amazon in 2022? We will talk about this today.
Cosmetics are products that are commonly rubbed, poured, splashed, or sprayed on the body to cleanse, beautify, or change the appearance of the body. The beauty products category includes products such as skin creams, perfumes, lipsticks, nail polishes, temporary tattoos, eye and face makeup, shampoos, hair dyes, toothpastes, and deodorants.
Why you need to sell beauty products on Amazon?
Amazon recently revealed that it has over 100 million Amazon Prime members on its site, representing one of the largest potential marketplaces available. It has made a concerted effort to make cosmetics the majority of its sales, seeing huge growth in this category each of the past three years.
However, selling cosmetics on Amazon can often be confusing for new sellers. Due to the nature of these products and the fact that they come into contact with the skin, Amazon takes steps to ensure that the health and beauty products on their site meet safe standards for their customers.
As such, some sub-categories of the health and beauty section need to be approved to ensure products meet Amazon’s standards.
How to qualify to sell cosmetics on Amazon?
Amazon “restricts” access to certain sub-categories of cosmetics, such as products that include anything that is applied to the skin (lotion, nail polish, etc.). To open up these gates, Amazon requires additional levels of verification of the products it sells.
It requires that if you resell or distribute such items, you must provide an invoice directly from the manufacturer dated within the last 180 days. In addition to the invoice, Amazon asks for one of these things:
FDA Registration Confirmation
It should include:
- Firstly, manufacturer’s name, contact information and valid serial number.
- Secondly, a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certificate confirming that a manufacturer manufactures its products in a safe and consistent manner.
- Third, certificate of Analysis (COA) – proof that a product has been tested for safety and composition.
- Fourth, the most likely method of success is to provide proof of a valid FDA registration for the manufacturer or packager of the product.
Registrations of beauty products on Amazon with FDA
Currently, the FDA does not require registration of cosmetics manufacturers, but does offer the Cosmetics Voluntary Registration Program (VCRP).
According to the FDA website, cosmetics businesses located in the United States may register with the FDA before or after their products are commercialized and sold to consumers in the United States.
However, the FDA sometimes requires agencies to wait until their products go on sale. Cosmetics businesses in other countries can only register after their products are exported for sale in the US.
Meanwhile, it only allows manufacturers and packaging businesses to register under the VCRP.
Distributors who intend to sell in these closed Amazon sub-categories may provide the FDA product manufacturer’s registration.
Compliance checklist to sell beauty products on Amazon
Packing
- Cosmetics must be sealed in the original packaging of the manufacturer.
- Beauty products must be new and unused.
- It must clearly display identification codes placed on the packaging by the manufacturer or distributor, such as matrix codes, batch numbers or serial numbers.
Pages with labels and product information
Cosmetic product labels and detail pages should be labeled in English with the following information:
- The product’s name
- Purpose or use of the product (for example, cleansing the body, reducing wrinkles, moisturizing the skin)
- Amount of cosmetic content in terms of weight, measure, amount, or combination (e.g. 30 oz, 5 ml, 10 pills, 5 lbs)
- List of ingredients
- Name and address of manufacturer, packer or distributor
- Any necessary label warnings
Cosmetic labels and listings must not:
- Indicate that products treat, alleviate, or prevent diseases in humans, unless the FDA approved the claim and the product is properly labeled as a cosmetic or drug product.
- Show that a cosmetic is “FDA approved” if it is not FDA approved.
- Use the FDA logo
- Be labeled “tester”, “not for retail”, or “not for resale” because these items cannot be sold on Amazon.
Products and Ingredients
- Cosmetics should not be mentioned in FDA safety warning
- It must not contain prohibited ingredients (more on prohibited ingredients can be found here)
- Cosmetics must be safe to use. It must not be a product that the FDA considers presents an unreasonable risk of injury or illness, such as: products containing methylene glycol, which releases formaldehyde into the air when heated
- Beauty products must not issue a prescription or the supervision or direction of a healthcare professional for their use
- It must not contain controlled substances
- Cosmetics must not contain plastic microbeads
- To be sold in California and New York, antiperspirants, deodorants, and hair sprays must be free of toxic air pollutants.
Cosmetics must comply with Amazon policies, including:
- Cosmetics containing ingredients derived from sharks, whales, dolphins or porpoises are prohibited from sale.
- Cosmetics containing more than 12% hydrogen peroxide are prohibited from sale.
- Cosmetics containing acetone, such as nail polish remover, cannot be sold in quantities greater than 16 ounces.
- InStyler rotary irons banned from sale
- Claire’s cosmetics banned from sale
Known prohibited beauty products on Amazon
Amazon specifically bans the following beauty products. These products are prohibited because they do not meet the requirements of the checklist. HOWEVER. This list does not include all beauty products banned by Amazon.
- Corrective and cosmetic contact lenses
- Latisse
- Obagi Nu-Derm Sunfader
- Products containing minoxidil more than 5%
- Obagi Nu-Derm Clear
- Bithionol
- Obagi Nu-Derm Blender
- Brazilian Blowout Acai Professional Smoothing Solution
- Obagi Elastiderm Decolletage Skin Lightening Complex
- Methylene chloride
- Obagi C-Therapy Nightcream
- Chloroform
- Obagi RX System Clarifying Serum
- Halogenated salicylanilides
- Vinyl chloride in aerosol products
- Zirconium-containing complexes in aerosol products
- Synthol, Synthrol, or Swethol posing oil
- Trichloroacetic acid
Additional helpful resources
LegitScript has a searchable database that can help determine if cosmetics contain a banned ingredient.
The future of cosmetic rules
The recent growth of the cosmetics industry has generated a lot of speculation about how US cosmetics are currently regulated due to the growing inconsistency and unsafe products flooding the market.
Over the past few years, the US Congress has introduced several new bills in an attempt to change and update the FDA’s current cosmetic regulation requirements. One of the major changes proposed in these bills is the introduction of mandatory FDA registration for cosmetics manufacturers.
Although nothing is officially known yet, there is an obvious push to change the rules regarding cosmetics.
Still wondering what to sell on Amazon?
Especially for you, we have created the “What to sell on Amazon?” section, in which we talk about how to sell certain products on the fastest growing platform in the world!
