Beauty & Cosmetics agencies.

OPSS is the GB regulator for cosmetics under the retained Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009. Every product made available to consumers in Great Britain must have a UK-established Responsible Person, a current Product Information File, and an SCPN notification to OPSS before sale; failure to notify carries an unlimited fine in England and Wales or up to £5,000 in Scotland and Northern Ireland and a custodial penalty of up to three months. OPSS amended the Cosmetics Regulation three times in 2024-25 to reflect new HSE classifications and bring chemicals like BHT, kojic acid and methyl salicylate inside scope. Article 20 of the UK Cosmetics Regulation, read with the EU Common Criteria (Regulation 655/2013), governs claims: they must be truthful, honest, lawful, fair, evidentially supported and presented so consumers can make informed decisions. The CTPA Guide to Advertising Claims and its Claim Substantiation Tool are the practical reference set for member firms. The ASA enforces the CAP Code on consumer-facing ad claims and consistently requires human trials rather than in-vitro data for visible-effect claims; recent rulings against 111 Skin Ltd in 2025 found 'Clinically proven to lift the skin by 20%' and 'Exosome Face Lift' inadequately substantiated because the supporting studies lacked placebo controls and relied on subjective self-assessment. The CMA, with new direct-fining powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, sits alongside the ASA on influencer disclosure and consumer-law breaches. The ICO enforces UK GDPR and PECR over data and electronic marketing.

• · Claim-substantiation discipline that maps work back to Article 20 and Regulation 655/2013, with awareness of CTPA tooling and a default to human-trial evidence rather than in-vitro or self-assessment data
• · TikTok Shop and live-commerce operational fluency: creator pipeline management, affiliate-link economics, livestream scheduling, and a view on how the platform feeds wholesale conversations at Boots and Sephora UK
• · Named beauty case studies across prestige, indie DTC, mass FMCG or male grooming, with category-specific results rather than recycled consumer-brand showreels
• · Influencer-programme rigour against the ASA and CMA endorsement guidance, with '#ad' disclosure at the start of captions or on-creative, gifting and affiliate flagged, and a documented compliance review
• · Responsible Person, SCPN and PIF awareness on launch projects, so creative and packaging conversations land alongside the regulatory clock rather than after it

• · Efficacy copy in the work samples that would not survive an ASA pre-vet: 'clinically proven', 'visibly reverses', percentage-uplift figures or before-and-after sequences without disclosed methodology and human-trial backing
• · Influencer plans that rely on '#gifted', '#spon' or end-of-caption hashtags rather than '#ad' at the start of the caption or clearly overlaid on-creative, with no documented CMA and ASA review step
• · No working knowledge of the GB Responsible Person regime, SCPN notification or the Product Information File on a new-product brief, and timelines that ignore the regulatory clock
• · Sustainability and clean-beauty positioning built on vague claims like 'natural', 'pure' or 'clean' without evidence, ingredient transparency or third-party verification, which sits inside Provenance and CMA greenwashing risk
• · Treating TikTok Shop as just another paid-social channel rather than a live-commerce, creator-affiliate and shoppable-content discipline, with no view on the K-beauty surge or how live sessions feed wholesale buyers