Malaysia Releases 2024 Cosmetics Violation Summary
In July 2025, the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) of Malaysia published the 2024 work priorities of its Centre for Compliance and Quality Control (CCQC) under the Surveillance and Complaints Section (SCS) on its official website, disclosing statistics on cosmetic violations.
Sampling Situation
In 2024, Malaysia NPRA collected a total of 2,007 batches of cosmetics samples and sent 1,577 batches to the laboratory for testing. A total of 39 batches of products were found to be non-compliant with regulations. For non-compliant cosmetics, the NPRA issues warnings to the Cosmetic Notification Holders, requiring product recalls or cancellation of the product notification.
Additionally, Malaysian regulatory authorities conducted label reviews on 1,943 cosmetics, finding 1,510 with non-compliant labeling issues, with a non-compliance rate of up to 80%. The problem of non-compliant products is concentrated in missing country of origin information, missing batch numbers, inconsistency between the cosmetic name and the notified name, label information displayed only in foreign languages, and missing Notification Holder name and address. Malaysia NPRA may take stricter enforcement actions in the future to address the current labeling issues.
Advertising Supervision
The NPRA's Surveillance and Complaints Section (SCS) is responsible for the supervision of cosmetics advertising. In 2024, this department screened a total of 1,226 cosmetic advertisements, covering mainstream social media and e-commerce platforms, and found 384 non compliant advertisements, with a non-compliance rate of 31%.
If cosmetics that publish non-compliant advertisements are found to have non-compliant behavior after investigation, the NPRA will take measures such as issuing warning letters demanding immediate removal or cancellation of the non-compliant advertisement, or canceling the cosmetic notification. Last year, the NPRA SCS received a total of 101 valid complaints about cosmetics advertising, resulting in the cancellation of notifications for 32 cosmetics.
Quality Complaints
Last year, Malaysia NPRA received a total of 168 complaints about cosmetics, mainly related to adverse reactions, prohibited substances, and exaggerated or misleading claims.
81 complaints were related to banned substances, including Mercury and Hydroquinone. The Malaysian authorities have notified member countries of 19 cosmetics containing prohibited substances (some products contain more than one prohibited substance) through the ASEAN Post-Marketing Alert System (PMAS), including 9 cosmetics containing Mercury, 6 cosmetics containing Hydroquinone, 7 cosmetics containing Tretinoin, 6 cosmetics containing Betamethasone 17-Valerate, and 2 cosmetics containing Clindamycin and Metronidazole.
There were 66 complaints related to claims, primarily concerning claims of medical efficacy or claims that fall outside the scope of cosmetics.
