Tag: Cosmetics Act Article 15-2

🇰🇷 한국어판 읽기

Hello, this is Dr. J. A Korean cosmetic box that says vegan almost never says “not tested on animals” beside it. Shoppers read the gap as a gap. It is not one — it is a rule.

Here is the part most summaries skip. No statute anywhere defines the word “vegan” for cosmetics — not in Korea, not in the EU, not in the United States. What differs between the three is what fills that empty space, and what a label is allowed to print next to the word.

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Primary sources

📄 Guide to Vegan Labelling and Advertising of Cosmetics, 2025 (Korea Cosmetic Association, PDF, Korean)

📄 Cosmetics Act Article 15-2 (Korean Law Information Center)

📄 Regulation (EU) No 655/2013, common criteria for cosmetic claims (EUR-Lex)

📄 “Cruelty Free”/“Not Tested on Animals” (U.S. FDA)

The Korean guide runs to a few pages and has three chapters: purpose, scope, and criteria. The EU regulation carries the six common criteria in its Annex.

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The five lines, if you are in a hurry

✔ “Vegan” is not defined in Korean law — a 2025 industry guide sets the requirements

✔ A product must meet all three: no animal ingredient, none animal-tested, and no testing of the finished product

✔ Ingredients processed with micro-organisms are allowed — fermentation does not break a vegan claim

✔ Share a production line with a non-vegan batch and you wash it thoroughly first

✔ A Korean label cannot print “not tested on animals” — the sale is already banned, so the claim would mislead

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The word is not in the statute — a 2025 industry guide fills the gap

Search the Korean Cosmetics Act for “vegan” and nothing comes back. The text that does define it was issued in 2025 by the advertising advisory committee of the self-regulatory review body run by the Korea Cosmetic Association. The guide says of itself that it exists to give advertisers “the minimum requirements for making a vegan claim.”

Its scope is a single line: “This guide applies to cosmetics that are labelled or advertised as vegan.” A product that does not make the claim is outside it.

※ The clause numbers inside the guide do not survive text extraction from the PDF, so this article names the chapters rather than the subparagraphs.

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Ingredients, manufacturing, substantiation — the three chapters that follow

After the definition the guide sets out how to keep to it. The second line below is the one that surprises formulators.

The guide cites, as its legal footing, Articles 10, 13 and 14 of the Cosmetics Act with Articles 19, 22 and 23 of the Enforcement Rule and its Annex 5 — and Article 15-2. The guide itself carries no penalty; those provisions do.

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What may be said, and what may not

Two of the four rows below are the ones a brand entering Korea tends to get wrong.

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The statute behind the banned line — Cosmetics Act Article 15-2

The reason the phrase is off-limits sits in the statute. Korea already bans the sale, so printing the claim would suggest that products without it are the tested ones.

The six exceptions, as the statute words them:

The penalty is an administrative fine of up to KRW 1 million under Article 40(1)7. Translations of the Korean provisions here are ours.

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Korea, the EU and the United States — one word, three situations

Set the three side by side and the pattern is clear. None of them defines the word. What differs is what stands in for a definition, and whether the adjacent claim is allowed.

For a brand, the practical reading is that Korea regulates the words around the claim rather than the claim itself. A pack artwork that pairs “vegan” with “not tested on animals” passes in the EU and the United States and fails in Korea — and the Korean reason is not that the statement is false, but that it is already true of everything on the shelf.

The EU technical document is worth one caution. It carries the line “IT IS NOT A EUROPEAN COMMISSION DOCUMENT” and is dated as a version of 3 July 2017, agreed by a sub-working group. It is guidance on how to apply the six criteria, not a statute.

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Four things to check on a Korean box

✔ Next to “vegan”, look for which standard or certifier is named

✔ “Made with vegan ingredients” is not the same claim as “vegan cosmetic”

✔ A missing “not tested on animals” is not a missing feature — the phrase is not allowed

✔ Whether a product is gentle is a question of ingredients and concentrations, read separately

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In one line

No statute defines “vegan” for cosmetics, and in Korea a 2025 industry guide sets three requirements that must all be met. No ingredient of animal origin, none tested on animals, and no testing of the finished product — with fermented ingredients expressly allowed, and one neighbouring phrase expressly forbidden.

What we left out, and why

✔ The guide’s subparagraph numbers — they do not survive text extraction from the PDF, so we name the chapters instead

✔ Any vegan certifier or mark — the guide names none, and we verified none as a primary source, so we name none either

✔ A list of animal-derived ingredients — the guide carries no such table; honey, beeswax and lanolin appear here as commonly cited examples

✔ The commencement date of Article 15-2 — the law portal does not return addenda, so 4 February 2017 rests on press reports

✔ Any vegan entry in the MFDS labelling guidance — the 14 August 2025 guidance lists natural and organic wording among restricted expressions, but nothing on vegan or animal testing

✔ Claims that vegan products are gentler — no primary source, so not written

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📌 Earlier guides

📌 How to Read a Korean Cosmetic Ingredient List (Guide 14) — where the ingredient names are checked

📌 Collagen: Topical vs Oral (Guide 5) — an ingredient that comes from an animal

📌 Bakuchiol vs Retinol — the 44-person trial (Guide 3) — an ingredient that comes from a plant

📌 Sunscreen SPF and PA: How to Read the Numbers (Guide 11) — one of the three classes named in exception 1

📄 Sources

· Korea Cosmetic Association, Guide to Vegan (VEGAN) Labelling and Advertising of Cosmetics (issued 2025), by the advertising advisory committee of the self-regulatory review body for cosmetic labelling and advertising

· Cosmetics Act of Korea, Article 15-2(1) and (2), Article 40(1)7, Article 8(2) and (3), Articles 10, 13 and 14

· Laboratory Animal Act, Article 2(1)

· Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, Guidance on the Management of Cosmetic Labelling and Advertising (14 August 2025)

· Regulation (EU) No 655/2013, common criteria, Annex points 1–6

· European sub-working group on claims, Technical document on cosmetic claims, Annex III (version of 3 July 2017)

· Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, Article 18

· U.S. FDA, “Cruelty Free”/“Not Tested on Animals” (content current as of 25 February 2022)

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This article summarises an industry guide and statutes for general information and is not a substitute for diagnosis or treatment. On the day it was written the Korean law portal was unreachable, so Article 15-2 was taken verbatim from a statute mirror and the commencement date from press reports. Translations of the Korean provisions and of the guide are ours; the subparagraph numbers inside the guide do not survive text extraction from the PDF, so chapters are named instead.

— Dr. J Ingredient Notes