UK vs EU cosmetic ingredient rules after Brexit: how the annexes have diverged

Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, the EU Cosmetics Regulation, still sets the shape of cosmetic ingredient law in Great Britain. But since 1 January 2021 the two rulebooks have been legally separate instruments, amended by separate governments on separate timetables. For a formulator or regulatory affairs team selling into both markets, that means checking two annexes, not one, and never assuming a Brussels amendment has automatically reached London, or the reverse.

The legal starting point: retained law, not a shared rulebook

Great Britain did not write a new cosmetics law after Brexit. It kept the EU one. Schedule 34 of the Product Safety and Metrology etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (SI 2019/696) amended Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 as it stood at the end of the transition period, converting it into UK domestic law. That process is usually called onshoring: EU-specific wording was swapped for GB equivalents ("Community market" became "market of Great Britain", the responsible person now has to be established in the UK, notifications go to the Secretary of State rather than to an EU portal), while the substance of the ingredient rules, including the annexes, carried over unchanged at that moment in time.

That single starting point is why the GB and EU annexes still look alike. It is also exactly why they no longer stay alike. From the moment the UK Cosmetics Regulation existed as its own instrument, each side has amended its own annexes independently. Northern Ireland is a separate case again, continuing to follow the EU Cosmetics Regulation under the Windsor Framework, so a product portfolio that spans Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the EU can in principle sit under three different rule sets at once.

Two annexes, two amendment processes

In the EU, the Commission amends the annexes to 1223/2009 directly, by Commission Regulation, usually acting on a Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) opinion and CLP classification changes. These regulations are published in the Official Journal and apply across all EU member states from the dates they set out, typically with separate placing-on-the-market and making-available deadlines.

In Great Britain, amendments to the annexes are made by the Office for Product Safety and Standards through their own statutory instruments, laid before Parliament and notified to the World Trade Organization as technical regulations in their own right. A recent example is the Cosmetic Products Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 (Restriction of Chemical Substances) (Amendment and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/23), which inserts new entries into Annex II (the list of prohibited substances) and sets its own compliance deadlines. There is no mechanism that automatically pulls an EU annex change into GB law, or vice versa: each side has to legislate for itself, and the two legislative calendars do not run in step.

Practically, that produces three kinds of divergence: substances the EU has restricted or banned that GB has not yet addressed, substances GB has restricted or banned that the EU has not, and substances both sides have restricted but under different instruments, different entry numbers and different transitional dates.

Where the annexes currently differ: worked examples

cosingchecker.com holds the EU Cosmetics Regulation annexes and the GB Cosmetics Regulation annexes as separately versioned, separately sourced record sets, precisely because they no longer move together. Checked against the live database on 10 September 2026, three examples show what that looks like in practice.

Retinol and its esters: an EU restriction with no GB counterpart yet

Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/996 of 3 April 2024 added Retinol, Retinyl Acetate and Retinyl Palmitate to Annex III (restricted substances) of the EU Cosmetics Regulation, capping them at 0.05% Retinol Equivalent in body lotion and 0.3% RE in other leave-on and rinse-off products, with a mandatory warning, "Contains vitamin A. Consider your daily intake before use." The EU entry (Annex III, entry 376) carries market-placement and market-availability deadlines running into 2025 and 2027.

A search of the GB rule set for "retinol" on cosingchecker.com/regulations/gb/ returns no matching record as of the current data snapshot (source version 2026-08-15). That is not evidence that GB permits unrestricted retinol use: the site's own position is that an absent rule is not proof a substance is allowed, only that no binding GB restriction has been imported into the database yet. A company relying on the EU limit as a proxy for GB compliance would be assuming an alignment that, on the current record, has not been legislated.

Titanium dioxide: an inhalation restriction that has not carried across

Commission Regulation (EU) 2021/850 added titanium dioxide in powder form, where 1% or more of particles have an aerodynamic diameter of 10 micrometres or less, to Annex III of the EU Cosmetics Regulation (entry 321), restricting it to loose face powders at up to 25% and to hair aerosol sprays, and barring its use where it could expose the lungs by inhalation. The change followed titanium dioxide's classification as a Category 2 inhalation carcinogen under Regulation (EU) 2020/217.

GB's record for titanium dioxide, held under cosingchecker.com/annex/, currently shows three entries: Annex VI, entry 27 (a UV filter, capped at 25%), Annex VI, entry 27a (the nano form, with detailed physical-characteristic conditions), and Annex IV, entry 143 (colorant use). None of them is an Annex III inhalation-exposure restriction on loose powder or hair-spray forms. The EU's 2021 restriction on that specific physical form has no matching GB entry in the current data. Titanium dioxide is a useful reminder that a substance can be permitted in both markets for its main uses while still differing on a narrower, form-specific restriction.

4-MBC and TPO: both sides banned them, on different clocks

Some substances show the opposite pattern: both jurisdictions arrived at a prohibition, but by separate routes and on separate timetables. The UV filter 4-methylbenzylidene camphor (4-MBC) was added to the EU's prohibited list, Annex II, as entry 1730, by Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/996. Diphenyl(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl)phosphine oxide (TPO), used as a photoinitiator, was added to EU Annex II as entry 1731 by a later regulation, (EU) 2025/877.

GB prohibited the same two substances through SI 2026/23, but as Annex II entries 1744 and 1745 of the GB Cosmetics Regulation, applying from 15 July 2026, with sell-through periods that end on 14 January 2027 or 14 February 2027 depending on the entry. The entry numbers do not match the EU's because the two annexes are numbered and inserted independently; a cross-reference by name or CAS number, not by entry number, is the only reliable way to match a GB record to its EU counterpart. GB's Annex III also still carries entry 311 for TPO, the restriction to artificial nail systems that predates the new prohibition. The EU held the same entry until Regulation (EU) 2025/877 deleted it when it moved TPO to Annex II; SI 2026/23 adds the GB prohibition but does not mention entry 311, so its status is not settled by the text of the instrument. Do not read it as a deliberate sell-through route without confirming with OPSS. Two regulators reaching the same substantive conclusion is not the same as the two annexes being identical.

What to check when you sell in both markets

• Treat the EU and GB annexes as two separate legal texts that happen to share a common ancestor, not as one ruleset with a UK appendix.
• Check both cosingchecker.com/regulations/gb/ and the EU annex records for a substance by CAS number rather than by entry number, since GB and EU entry numbers for the same substance frequently do not match.
• Do not read an absent GB (or EU) record as permission. Absence means no binding rule has been imported into the dataset yet, not that the substance is cleared for that market.
• Watch for GB-only transitional or restricted-use entries, such as TPO's Annex III record, that sit alongside a prohibition and can affect residual stock or specific product types during a sell-through window.
• Track OPSS statutory instruments and WTO technical-regulation notifications for GB, and Commission Regulations and SCCS opinions for the EU, as two separate monitoring feeds rather than one.
• Remember Northern Ireland continues to follow the EU Cosmetics Regulation, so a GB-only check is not sufficient for a UK-wide portfolio.
• Use cosingchecker.com/market-divergence/ to compare a substance's status across jurisdictions side by side before assuming a single global formulation will clear both regimes.

None of this substitutes for reading the primary legislation. cosingchecker.com's GB and EU records are imported and versioned from legislation.gov.uk and EUR-Lex respectively, with a source reference and version date on every entry, precisely so that a compliance check can be traced back to the official text rather than stopping at a database summary.

Sources

• The Product Safety and Metrology etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, Schedule 34 — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/696/schedule/34
• The Cosmetic Products Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 (Restriction of Chemical Substances) (Amendment and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/23) — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/23/contents/made
• Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/996 of 3 April 2024 amending Annexes II, III, V and VI to Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 — https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/996/oj
• Commission Regulation (EU) 2021/850 of 26 May 2021 amending Annexes II and III to Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 (titanium dioxide) — https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32021R0850
• GOV.UK / OPSS: Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 and the Cosmetic Products Enforcement Regulations 2013 (Great Britain) — https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cosmetic-products-enforcement-regulations-2013/regulation-20091223-and-the-cosmetic-products-enforcement-regulations-2013-great-britain
• Commission Regulation (EU) 2025/877 (CMR substances; TPO moved to Annex II, Annex III entry 311 deleted) — https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32025R0877
• cosingchecker.com live API: jurisdiction, stats and rule records — https://cosingchecker.com/api/v1/jurisdictions/