China is enforcing stricter cosmetic safety and risk regulations this year as part of a phased approach towards market standardization, and it's a move set to shake up business significantly, said an expert.China's beauty market had already faced “growing pains” in the wake of the Cosmetic Supervision and Administration Regulation (CSAR), issued on January 1, 2021, as “the first comprehensive and systematic overarching law in the Chinese cosmetics industry in over 30 years,” said Chris Wang, Senior Regulatory Affairs Researcher and Head of Operations at China-based cosmetic compliance firm ZMUni Compliance Centre. Since then, more than 200 supporting regulations and policies had been introduced to address areas like ingredient submission codes, efficacy claims, and on-pack labeling, Wang said, including the Technical Guidelines for Cosmetic Safety Assessment, Standards for Cosmetic Efficacy Claim Evaluation, and Provisions for Supervision and Administration of Manufacturing and Marketing of Cosmetics. Regulatory authorities had also clamped down, with inspections, emergency controls, and violation penalties sharply focused on ingredient safety, labeling and advertising, microbial and hygiene standards, good manufacturing practices, and e-commerce and cross-border management.“The development of cosmetics regulation in China started relatively late,” Wang told BeautyMatter. The past four years have created significant waves of change across the cosmetics supply chain as regulatory oversight has turned “stricter and more mature, with institutional, legal, and standardized management of cosmetics,” she said.