What Is a Cosmetic Product Safety Report (CPSR) and Who Needs One
HE Manufacturing Team
The Document That Has to Exist Before a Product Can Legally Sell
Under EU Cosmetics Regulation 1223/2009, every cosmetic product placed on the EU market must have a Cosmetic Product Safety Report (CPSR) completed and held on file before it is sold, no exceptions for small brands or limited runs. The UK maintains a parallel requirement under its own retained cosmetics regulation. A product without a valid CPSR is not legally allowed on shelves in either market, regardless of how well it performs or how clean its ingredient list is.
What the Report Actually Contains
A CPSR is split into two parts. Part A is the safety information: the full quantitative formula, physical and chemical characteristics, microbiological quality, impurities and trace substances, packaging material, normal and reasonably foreseeable use, exposure data, and the toxicological profile of each ingredient. Part B is the safety assessment itself, a written, reasoned conclusion, prepared by a qualified safety assessor, on whether the product is safe for human health under its labeled conditions of use. Part B is not a checklist. It is a professional judgment call that has to be defensible if ever challenged.
Who Is Legally Allowed to Write One
A CPSR's safety assessment must be prepared by a qualified safety assessor, defined under the regulation as someone holding a degree in pharmacy, toxicology, medicine, or a similar discipline recognized by the relevant EU member state. A brand cannot self-certify this document, and a manufacturer's general QA team, without a qualified assessor on staff or under contract, cannot legally sign one off either. This is one of the more common gaps that surfaces when a growing brand moves from a home market into the EU or UK for the first time.
Where the Report Lives, and Who Can Ask for It
The completed CPSR is held by the Responsible Person, the legally accountable entity for a cosmetic product in the EU or UK market, and must be made available to market surveillance authorities on request, typically within 72 hours. It does not need to be published or shown to consumers, but it has to exist and be retrievable the moment it is asked for. A brand that has never seen its own CPSR, or does not know who its Responsible Person is, has a compliance gap worth closing before, not after, a regulator asks.
How This Fits Into a Manufacturing Project
Because the CPSR requires the full quantitative formula and manufacturing details, it has to be built in coordination with whoever is producing the product, not assembled after the fact from a partial ingredient list. For brands manufacturing with us and selling into the EU or UK, this is part of the compliance documentation we help coordinate as part of a private label project. Our Private Label page covers the rest of what that process includes.
