Two years ago, the European Union (EU) entered a new regulatory cycle with the formation of its European Parliament in June 2024 and the European Commission, both set to run until 2029. Since then, there has been a raft of regulatory proposals, measures, and framework changes—many of which impact the beauty industry.
Here, BeautyMatter takes a deep dive into the changes that matter most and how these regulatory updates are set to impact global beauty businesses operating in the EU.
The current five-year regulatory EU cycle is all about simplification. The European Commission wants to slash recurrent administrative costs by €37.5 billion ($42.6 billion) across all industries before the end of its 2024-2029 mandate. Many regulatory updates and proposals, therefore, are sharply focused on simplification to help build a more competitive climate for European business.
For the beauty industry, the focus on simplification has actually put a pause on some important revision work of the industry's key overarching frameworks.
The revision of the EU's major chemical regulation, the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Regulation [Regulation (EC) 1907/2006], for example, was canceled in April this year, after six years of delays and opposition. The European Commission said it wants to maintain certainty and predictability in Europe and so will instead focus on simplifying and modernizing REACH's existing framework.
The revision of the EU Cosmetic Products Regulation (CPR) [Regulation (EC) 1223/2009] remains ongoing, with the European Commission due to communicate findings before the end of this year. Industry sources, however, believe the same “pause” may soon be issued on the CPR revision, given that separate regulatory updates have resolved many issues being investigated within the framework.
To date, some of the most important EU regulatory updates around simplification have been issued via omnibus measures—packages of legislative proposals that amend multiple existing EU legal acts at the same time, which, according to the Commission, ensures “efficiency and coherence." Between January 2025 and June 2026, the Commission made twelve omnibus proposals aimed at reducing recurrent administrative costs by €14 billion ($15.9 billion).
The most recent omnibus proposal is vital for the beauty and personal care industry. Unveiled in June of this year and set to be written into law by the end of 2026, the EU Omnibus VI chemicals regulation package will streamline new cosmetic ingredient approvals, digitalize ingredient glossaries, and adjust cosmetic derogation processes for carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reprotoxic (CMR) substances.
The omnibus is widely supported by the beauty industry, as it addresses much of the overlapping bureaucracy and helps relieve the burden of several overly complex administrative processes.
John Chave, Director General of the industry association Cosmetics Europe, said the update is positive for the beauty industry—EU and worldwide. “The Omnibus VI is part of a whole string of measures which are about simplification,” Chave told BeautyMatter. “When I frame this for external audiences, I really try to emphasize that this is good news from the EU for a change and it's a genuine pro-competitiveness piece of news.”
Two more upstream regulations impacting the beauty industry, however, have been less welcomed. The EU's Revised Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD) and the EU's Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), both introduced last year, have been called out as placing disproportionate responsibility on the cosmetics industry.
In June of this year, leading beauty CEOs called for urgent action to address fragmented, unpredictable, and increasingly complex frameworks within EU policy, highlighting these two pieces of legislation as problematic. Under the Value of Beauty Alliance consortium, leaders said the revised UWWTD risks placing a “disproportionate financial burden on the industry,” given the requirement for producers of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals to collectively fund at least 80% of upgrades to wastewater treatment plants and ensure quaternary treatment throughout Europe. The PPWR, it said, also contains complex criteria—much of which is still being technically elaborated by the European Commission and Member States—with little regard to specific safety, hygiene, and design requirements of cosmetic and personal care products.
Chave said that while regulation is oftentimes “perfectly justified,” in the case of the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, measures are not, and no one is benefiting from the burden.
Heather Helm, Executive Vice President for Global Strategies at American trade association The Personal Care Products Council (PCPC), said that while the industry supports the environmental objectives outlined in the directive, its extended producer responsibility (EPR) requirements “unfairly target the cosmetics sector based on a flawed impact assessment that significantly overstates the sector's contribution to micropollutants in wastewater.” Helm told BeautyMatter there are concerns that both US and EU cosmetic companies are eventually facing “disproportionate and potentially multibillion-euro compliance costs.”
Helm and Chave both highlight, however, an important legal challenge from Poland, which has led the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice to argue for the annulment of the provisions requiring the cosmetics and personal care sectors to finance water treatment costs. The industry is waiting to see if changes are made, with the final European Court of Justice ruling pending.
Mojgan Moddaresi, EU-based independent regulatory strategist for cosmetics, believes the EU PPWR is the regulatory update set to have the biggest impact on international beauty businesses, describing it as “the most legitimate grievance in the current compliance landscape.”
“Although many obligations are phased over a longer period, it will impact packaging minimization, recyclability, recycled content in plastic packaging, and labeling. PPWR also affects every packaged SKU, not just products containing one specific ingredient, which makes this regulation an enterprise-wide program involving developer, procurement, sustainability, regulatory, operation, and marketing,” Moddaresi told BeautyMatter.
On the ingredients side, important compliance deadlines for EU beauty are also approaching or have passed.
For intentionally added microplastics, the industry has until October 2027 to reformulate rinse-off cosmetic products; until October 2029 to reformulate leave-on cosmetic products and fragrance encapsulations; and until October 2035 to reformulate makeup, lip, and nail leave-on cosmetic products.
At the beginning of 2026, France issued a ban on cosmetics containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl ingredients (PFAS), a large class of highly resistant synthetic chemicals known for very high persistence in the environment. The move represents the first legal stance on PFAs in Europe, though expert onlookers believe an EU-wide ban could be in the cards in the near future.
For cyclic silicones, another material considered highly persistent and bioaccumulative in the environment, there are important deadlines affecting cosmetics. While octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4) and decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) have been banned in rinse-off cosmetics since 2020 in the EU, dodecamethylcyclohexasiloxane (D6) was more recently banned in rinse-off products in June of this year, and the industry has until June 2027 to remove all three cyclic silicones in leave-on products.
New cosmetic labeling laws on fragrance allergens also came into force across the EU and Northern Ireland in July 2026, requiring 80+ allergens to be declared on the pack. Any products placed on the market before this date have until July 31, 2028, to sell existing inventory under the old labeling laws before being withdrawn if noncompliant.
Moddaresi said that while it is relatively easy to stay up to speed on regulatory changes, it is far less simple to translate these into concrete business actions. “A headline saying that an ingredient is banned is not sufficient to make a commercial decision.” Companies, she said, need to distinguish between proposals and adopted legal texts as well as understand terminology differences before acting, like “placing a product on the market,” which concerns manufacturers and importers, vs. “making a product available on the market,” which concerns distributors, wholesalers, and retailers.
EU beauty regulations are substantially complex because compliance is “multilayered, science- dependent, and continuously evolving,” Moddaresi explained. While the EU CPR is “highly harmonized,” the framework operates in parallel with others that govern chemical use, packaging, waste, environmental impact, consumer protection, and advertising standards, which can create conflicting restrictions or requirements.
The EU also places a “huge emphasis on the process of safety assessment,” she said, with toxicology reports, impurity of ingredients, good manufacturing practice, and stability and microbiological tests often required, which need involvement from every aspect of the supply chain. The fragrance allergen EU Regulation 2023/1545 is a good example, with brands requiring updated information from fragrance and essential oil providers to manage old stock, update labels, and, in some cases, conduct safety assessments. Getting a product ready for the EU market, particularly under updated regulations, therefore, is not always straightforward, she said.
International companies should not treat EU compliance as a final administrative step before launch, Moddaresi said, but instead build compliance into products and packaging from the beginning and treat EU regulation as a “strategic design input rather than a one-off process.” Importantly, she said planning ahead is key because when regulatory matters are addressed late, business can turn into “expensive crisis management.”
For US companies operating in or with Europe, staying informed and responsive to EU regulatory updates is crucial, given the importance of US–Europe business to the beauty industry. According to US Census Bureau data, total EU–US trade in cosmetics and personal care products reached around $14.6 billion in 2025, with US exports to the EU totaling around $3.6 billion and imports from EU suppliers reaching roughly $11 billion.
Helm said the US and EU beauty markets are “highly interconnected and mutually dependent,” with the EU playing a “central role in both demand for US products and supply of high-value personal care imports.”
Understanding and responding to EU regulatory updates is therefore extremely important for US beauty companies, she said. The PCPC has therefore developed an International Regulatory Database for its members as a resource on laws and regulations in more than 123 countries worldwide, including the EU, and regularly works with European counterparts such as Cosmetics Europe and the European Federation for Cosmetic Ingredients (EFfCI) on advocacy and education projects.
Chave said that regulatory change in the EU cosmetics market has certainly been widespread and complex in recent years. Importantly, though, he believes that changes have shown that “simplification can be achieved with the broader public policy goals around consumer safety 100% intact,” which is a good message for regulators worldwide.
Moddaresi said that EU regulatory changes are also creating space for beauty brands to improve their offerings: investing in safe chemistry, establishing more transparent supply chains, and improving packaging design, among other things, ultimately driving innovation. “Regulation does not kill innovation, but poor governance and poor planning certainly do,” she said. “The strongest beauty companies will be the ones that can connect scientific possibility with regulatory restriction to create products that genuinely address market needs.”
Crucially, she said compliance is now a topic of interest far beyond specialized regulatory departments. “If you look at overall changes to different regulations impacting a finished cosmetic product, it is no longer restricted to the safety of a finished formulation at the point of sale. Regulation for a cosmetic product has expanded to include impurities, sourcing, packaging, environmental persistence, wastewater management impacts, packaging recyclability, claims, post-market surveillance, and the product's end-of-life responsibility. In my view, this can move compliance from the regulatory department into the boardroom.”