Banned CMR Ingredient: Six Months to Ship, Twelve to Sell

What signal is this?

The European Parliament gave final approval to the chemicals simplification package in plenary on 22 October 2026. The vote was reported at 477 in favour, 59 against and 41 abstentions. The package amends the CLP Regulation (EC No 1272/2008), the Cosmetics Regulation (EC No 1223/2009) and the fertilising products regulation (EU 2019/1009) together, is known as "Omnibus VI", and carries the parliamentary procedure number 2025/0531(COD).

What changes on the cosmetics side is not the list of banned substances but the timetable that follows a ban. The structure by which a substance classified CMR 1A or 1B is in principle barred from cosmetics stays as it is. What differs is how long a product may be shipped afterwards and how long it may be sold in stores. Until now that was a flat 18 months; the new text splits the situation four ways.

No derogation sought is the default. In that case the manufacturer stops placing the product on the market within six months, and existing stock may be sold for up to twelve months. To obtain a derogation, the request must be filed within three months of the new CMR classification taking effect. If the derogation is refused over safety concerns, the windows shorten to three months to stop shipping and nine months to clear shelves; if the substance is considered safe but the refusal rests on a suitable alternative being available, marketing may continue for two years and shelves be cleared over three.

Summarised in one line, the direction is shorter. The European Commission had originally proposed twelve months to stop marketing and twenty-four to clear stores; the final text agreed between Parliament and Council cut the default to six and twelve. Parliament's research service (EPRS), in its October plenary briefing, also records that the negotiations "halved the time that these chemicals are allowed to be placed on the market and in circulation" after being outlawed. Restrictions on CMR substances intended for oral use were maintained, and the proposed exemption based on oral or inhalation exposure fell out of the final text. The consumer organisation BEUC criticised the outcome, warning that products containing hazardous ingredients will stay on shelves longer.

A note on how far to read this. The figures moved at every stage. Parliament's first-reading position (29 April 2026, 540 in favour, 60 against, 45 abstentions) carried a default of six months to place and fifteen months to remain available, and twenty-four and forty-eight months where a suitable alternative exists, conditional on an up-to-date Cosmetic Product Safety Report being available at all times. The negotiated text cleared the responsible committee on 14 July 2026 and reached the 22 October plenary vote. The six, twelve, three, nine, twenty-four and thirty-six month figures above follow trade reporting of the adopted text; the definitive wording has to be confirmed after formal Council adoption and publication in the EU Official Journal, with entry into force twenty days after that publication. So this article uses only the structure — the default grace period falling from eighteen months to one year, with a three-month window to file — as a basis for development decisions, and treats the month counts themselves as provisional until the Official Journal text is available.

1. The shortest window is the default

Look at how this amendment is designed and the shortest grace period attaches to doing nothing. Seek no derogation and it is six and twelve months; file one and have it refused and the period may in fact be longer — two years and three years where the refusal rests on an available alternative. Filing is built into the design as the mechanism that buys time.

So the question this amendment puts to a brand with European listings is not "does our product contain a banned substance?" That question only has an answer once a classification is settled. What has to be decided first is who learns of a classification, through what channel, and within how many days. The three-month filing window is reported to run from the point the classification takes effect, so hearing about it two months late leaves one month of options.

In practice the place this news lands first is the raw material supplier. When a classification discussion attaches to its own material, a supplier prepares guidance on replacements. When that guidance reaches a Korean customer, though, depends on the contractual relationship and the individual in charge. Adding one line to purchasing terms — notify without delay on any classification change — costs less than building a regulatory monitoring function from scratch.

The distribution side needs the same notification path. The sell-off deadline attaches to goods sitting in store, so if the local distributor does not know the date, stock past that date stays on the shelf. Which party carries that is whatever the contract says, and usually the contract says nothing.

• Whether purchasing terms state "notify without delay on any classification change"
• Whether someone is named to confirm the classification's effective date and circulate it internally
• Whether someone is named to decide whether to use the three-month derogation window
• Whether the contract contains a procedure for notifying local distributors of the sell-off deadline

2. The shipping deadline and the selling deadline bind different parties

Six and twelve months read more accurately as two dates attaching to different parties than as two stages of one task. The reported wording separates the first as stopping "placing on the market" and the second as selling existing stock. The first covers a manufacturer or importer pushing new volume in; the second covers volume already inside reaching a consumer.

In a structure that ships from Korea this distinction matters particularly. Manufacturing happens in Korea, and the EU Responsible Person and the importer are frequently separate parties. The point the shipping deadline attaches to is closer to entry into the internal market than to the completion date at the Korean plant. Shipping time and customs clearance sit in between, so the production schedule has to be cut off that much ahead of the deadline.

The second deadline, conversely, turns into a question of inventory quantity. Volume sent beyond what will sell within twelve months cannot be sold once the date passes — even with shelf life remaining. So for items containing a substance under classification discussion, carrying thinner in-market stock than usual is an available choice even before a ban is confirmed. That decision is inventory planning, not regulatory compliance.

Writing it as a number makes the judgement easier. Divide in-market stock by average monthly sales per item and record how many months of cover it represents; when news of a classification arrives, items that will clear within twelve months separate immediately from those that will not. Only the latter need further action.

• Whether the shipping deadline was calculated from the in-market placement date rather than the production date
• Whether shipping and customs time were subtracted from the production cut-off
• Whether in-market stock per item was converted into months of cover
• Whether items containing substances under classification discussion are flagged separately in the stock list

3. If reformulation takes longer than twelve months, the numbers invert

A one-year default grace period means that failing to move to a replacement formula within a year ends that item's European sales. Yet changing a single ingredient is not a matter of editing one line on an ingredient list. Selecting a replacement material, checking shifts in sensory feel, colour and scent, re-running stability testing, confirming container compatibility, revising labelling and updating in-market notification follow in sequence.

The hardest of these to compress is stability testing. Even with accelerated testing, long-term room-temperature data is sometimes requested alongside it, and that period cannot be designed away. So the answer to "can this be finished within a year if we start when the ban is announced?" differs by item. A simple cleansing product and a high-performance cream with sensitive emulsion stability spend the same year very differently.

The way to avoid the inversion is not to reformulate in advance but to write the substitution route down in advance. One line per key ingredient — what it would be replaced with, and what testing that would require again — removes the time spent on judgement when the news arrives. The cost of writing it is a few sentences; the cost of not writing it is a year.

Some ingredients plainly have no substitution route. Where that ingredient creates the product's core function or sensory character, replacement amounts to building the product again. Items like these are better separated out in advance. Replaceable items are a scheduling problem; effectively unreplaceable ones are a market-exit or renewal decision, and those are made by different people.

• Whether each key ingredient has one line naming a replacement candidate and the re-testing it triggers
• Whether reformulation time per item has been estimated in months
• Whether stability testing time fits inside twelve months, item by item
• Whether replaceable items are separated from those needing effective redevelopment

4. A derogation is filed by whoever holds the data

The provision allowing a derogation request within three months is only an option on the premise that the data to file exists. Derogation review runs through a scientific safety assessment, and the material used in that assessment is toxicological data on the substance and exposure calculations. It is not the kind of dossier a finished-goods brand can produce from scratch in three months.

In practice the parties that file are the raw material suppliers whose business rests on the substance, or industry associations. The EU Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety opinions on two fragrance substances published in October were likewise assessments of data industry had submitted. So a brand's job is not to become the filing party but to find out whether the supplier intends to file.

Changing the form of the question speeds up the reply. Rather than "is this ingredient acceptable?", ask "if a classification discussion attaches to this substance, do you intend to file for a derogation, and if not, what replacement material do you recommend?" The first question returns "it is permitted under current regulation", and that answer cannot be used to calculate a schedule.

With answers in hand, items sort into three groups: substances for which the supplier is preparing a derogation request, substances for which a replacement has been recommended, and substances with neither. The last group is the one whose formulas should go under review first.

• Whether key suppliers were asked about derogation plans and recommended replacements together
• Whether "currently permitted" was kept out of use as a basis for scheduling
• Whether substances are sorted into derogation-planned, replacement-advised and neither
• Whether items containing the "neither" substances are on a priority review list

5. Checking the banned list and checking classifications are different jobs

This amendment is not an event in which banned substances were added, but one in which the procedure after a ban was rewritten. A review routine that periodically checks only the prohibited and restricted annexes of the Cosmetics Regulation will therefore not catch it. Nothing changed in the annexes; what changed is the time granted after an annex changes.

The starting point sits outside the cosmetics framework. A CMR classification under CLP is not decided by looking at cosmetics alone, and once settled it leads to prohibition in cosmetics. So a formula aimed at Europe has two checkpoints: amendment of the cosmetics annexes, and the progress of classification discussions. The second moves before the first, and this amendment shortened the gap between them.

That is not an argument for a longer checklist. Different review intervals are enough. The annexes need checking only when amended, while classification discussions are better kept as an item to ask about for key ingredients only. Narrow "key" to "the ingredient whose removal changes the product" and the list usually comes down to a few per item.

One thing is clear: it is safer to assume this procedure will be used more often. In October alone, safety opinions on two fragrance substances were published on the EU side, and both reviews began from CMR classification discussions. The six and twelve months settled here are the timetable that will apply each time.

• Whether annex checks and classification-discussion checks are separate review items
• Whether the "removal changes the product" key-ingredient list has been narrowed per item
• Whether European listings and their key ingredients sit in one table
• Whether classification-discussion checks are a recurring item with a named owner

The first question for the brief

Instead of writing "planned for European export", add one line: if a key ingredient in this formula were banned tomorrow, how many months would moving to a replacement formula take? With the default grace period down to a year, any item whose number exceeds twelve months is one to know about now.

The second thing to write is inventory in months. Divide in-market stock per item by monthly sales and record the months of cover. Six months to stop shipping and twelve to sell are dates binding different parties, and with that conversion in hand you can pick out exactly the items needing further action the moment news arrives.

The last is the sentence you send to suppliers. Rather than "is this ingredient permitted?", write "if a classification discussion attaches to it, do you intend to file for a derogation, and if not, what replacement do you recommend?" The first question tells you today's status; the second tells you next year's schedule.