South Korea Issued Specifications on K-BPR Labeling and Advertising Language for Public Comments

On April 29, 2022, the South Korean Ministry of Environment issued the Specifications on Consumer Chemical Products Labelling and Advertising Language (Draft) to collect public comments by June 7, 2022.

This Draft was drawn up under the provision of Paragraph 1, Article 34 of the Consumer Chemical Products and Biocides Safety Act (also known as the K-BPR), aiming at regulating consumer chemical packaging and advertising language, and preventing business fraud, thereby further protecting the health and safety of consumers. The main contents of this Draft are hereby summarized in the following:

Expressions in the following are prohibited to be made in the packaging as advertising language:

• Words that may be misunderstood as “not toxic”, such as “non-toxic”, “zero toxicity”, “pure”, etc.;
• Phrases that may be misinterpreted as “no negative influence on the environment”, such as “natural”, “green”, “environment-friendly”, “natural extraction”, etc. unless specifications are explicitly made to the extracted substances and their contents;
• Statements that may mislead consumers to believe that the product is not harmful and lead to overuse or misuse of the product, such as “containing no harmful substances”, “cause no harm to physical health or skin”, and “safe for children”, etc.;
• Descriptions that may be misinterpreted as having no negative impact on humans or animals, such as “healthy”, “for human beings”, “to protect the skin”, etc.

The South Korean Ministry of Environment plans to study and improve the feasibility of this Specification every three years (specific date refers to June 30 of that year) from July 1, 2022. The public comments can be made before June 7 and the proposal of this Specification shall be officially entered into force within one year of its adoption.

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