Total cosmetic production in Japan last year was valued at an equivalent of US$90.3 Billion, a 2.0% improvement on the previous year, and the amount has steadily increased over the past three years.
By category, skin-care products output was by far the largest, accounting for a little over one-third of the total, followed by hair-care products, contrastively the share of fragrances such as perfume and eau de cologne come to no more than 2% or so. In Japan cosmetics are mainly regulated by the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law under the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The Pharmaceutical Affairs Law stipulates that all cosmetics to be marketed in Japan must be licensed by the Minister of Health and Welfare. The requirement applies to both domestic products and imports.
In case of cosmetics containing only ingredients having precedents of license in Japan, including the case of the application of simple formulation or of the change from only one ingredient to another, it takes about 3 months to get license for each product. Then, MHW undertook an investigation into ways of streamlining and speeding up the screening process and in 1985 adopoted a new procedure known as “Comprehensive Licensing System of Cosmetics by Category (abbreviation: CLS)”. Under CLS, standards are established for product categories such as shampoo, lipstick, eye shadow, etc., listing the names and specifications of ingredients having a precedent of license in Japan for each category; these standards may, if necessary, set forth the maximum allowable quantities of any listed ingredients.
August in 1991, it enacted the standard of 5 categories such as suntan and sunscreen oils, bath preparations. Therefore, 35 categories in all are already enacted.
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