Welcome to the Guild of Craft Soap & Toiletry Makers
Important information for GB based responsible persons!
GB based responsible persons (i.e. where the registered address for the responsible person is in England, Wales or Scotland) will lose access to CPNP, so all relevant cosmetic notifications to be uploaded to the UK service should be downloaded from CPNP as a ZIP file in advance of 31 December 2020.
How to submit a cosmetic product notification to the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS)
If you are making cosmetic products available to consumers in Great Britain (GB: England, Scotland, and Wales), you must notify your cosmetic products using the new submit cosmetic product notifications service.
The link to the new UK products notifications portal live service will be included here on 1 January 2021
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/submit-a-cosmetic-product-notification
Based in GB but sell into EU?
To sell into the EU you will need an EU registered Responsible Person – they won’t be able to be registered in GB (hence why GB based Responsible Persons will be losing access to CPNP).
About Northern Ireland (NI), whilst this is a UK service, there is more EU alignment in NI. A NI based responsible person (RP) who sells cosmetic products only in NI will only need to register on the EU’s CPNP. If that NI based RP wants to sell in GB, they need to register on the UK Submit Cosmetic Product Notifications (SCPN) service as well. Selling a new cosmetic product in both GB and NI markets would therefore require registration on both services. Obviously you could have a UK established RP in NI who only sells into GB, in which case they would only need to register on the UK’s SCPN.
Important Brexit update – new UK cosmetics products notifications portal!
Here are the important highlights: The new portal will not be live before 1st January 21 – anyone who has uploaded products to an existing portal did so on a test site and these will be lost. Access has been removed to prevent further use. This happened because links were posted in several social media sites.
Any existing products already on the market and registered with the existing CPNP will have to be notified within 90 days of the 1st January – so no panic please! You have plenty of time.
Any new products coming out on or after 1st of January 2021 cannot be put on UK market UNTIL they have been notified on the new UK portal.
Sellers in Northern Ireland – if you are only selling in NI you do not have to use the new portal but should continue to use the CPNP – however if you sell or export to other parts of the UK you have to register with the new portal as well.
You can download existing CPNP notifications in zip format and upload these directly to the new portal. Going forward if you sell in UK and EU the advice is to list on CPNP first, then download zip file and upload to new UK Portal. It was designed to prevent duplication of effort.
Unfortunately, if you wish to continue to sell products via export to EU you will need to have a responsible person residing/based in a member state.
The Guild of Craft Soap and Toiletry Makers (GCSTM) is a non-commercial peer support network which provides information and guidelines about handmade soap crafting and the EU legislation that regulates the cosmetics and toiletries industry. GCSTM is run by volunteers who give their time freely for the benefit of both our members and the profession as a whole. The Guild operates an open admissions policy and membership is FREE to any soap or toiletry maker who holds safety assessments for their product range. Click here to see additional notes for safety assessors
Click play below to view a short 30 second video that captures our message:
The Guild has two very specific aims:
1. To raise awareness of the legislative standards that are in place that apply to craft soap and toiletry products – specifically EU Regulation 1223/2009 (Cosmetics Regulation)
2. To register as members of the Guild crafters who work in compliance with this legislation and who hold relevant public liability insurance
Who Can Join the Guild?
The Guild is free to join and is open to any EU based craft soap and toiletry maker who can demonstrate that their products have been safety assessed and approved for sale by a chartered chemist or other approved person as defined by the EU Regulation 1223/2009 (Cosmetics Regulation). For details on membership click here
Disclaimer: While the Guild strives to make the information on this website as timely and accurate as possible, the Guild makes no claims, promises, or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the contents of this site, and expressly disclaims liability for errors and omissions in the contents of this site or any associated publications.
About Cosmetics Legislation
It is not generally known that in order to legally sell a crafted soap, toiletry or any other cosmetic product within the European Union that it must meet legislative guidelines. The reason for this is public safety. The same legislative standards applies to imported products. The legislation in question was previously known as the Cosmetics Products (Safety) Regulations, since replaced by the new EU Regulation 1223/2009 (Cosmetics Regulation) which has been in force since 11 July 2013.
It is legislation in force within the European Union. Different countries may interpret and implement parts of the regulations differently. Current membership countries of the European Union (EU) are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Applications from any of these countries is welcome.
A major reason for the existence of the Guild is to raise awareness of the Cosmetics Products (Safety) Regulations. Because of this we are not currently accepting applications from crafters in areas where the legislation is not in force. This is a practical policy decision only and should not be viewed as a reflection on the quality of crafts produced by manufacturers outside the European Union.
The legislation sets standards. It aims to ensure that every ingredient in hand-crafted soap and toiletry products is safe to use. Some ingredients are banned because they’ve been found by scientific testing to be potentially harmful. Other products are banned or restricted because they are potential allergens. The aim of the legislation is to protect the general public and the craft soap and toiletry maker.