Certifications
What a Certificate
Actually Covers.
A certificate is a statement about a site, a product or a company — almost never about all three at once. This page sets out what each of the schemes buyers ask us about actually covers, where it stops, and which markets ask for which.
These certificates belong to the plants we work with, not to us.
Seoul Coslab does not own production lines. We hold no manufacturing certification of our own and we do not present one — including on this page.
Certifications depend on the selected manufacturing partner and project requirements. Once a partner is matched to your project we confirm the current scope and validity for the specific facility and the line your product will run on, and send you the evidence rather than a claim.
What does not depend on a partner is the other half of the conversation: what each certification covers, what it cannot tell you, and which of them reach back into formulation rather than sitting at the end of it. That part is worth reading before you have a partner, which is why this page exists.
What each one actually certifies.
- 01
CGMP (Korea)
What it isThe good manufacturing practice framework applied to cosmetic production sites in Korea, under the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. It covers premises, equipment, personnel, documentation and how a batch is released. It attaches to a site — it says nothing about any individual formula.
Where it mattersIt is the reference Korean facilities are usually measured against, and it is the first thing most overseas buyers ask about a Korean line. Because it attaches to a site, the useful question is which site and which line, not whether the term appears somewhere in a company profile.
- 02
ISO 22716
What it isThe international standard setting out good manufacturing practice guidelines for cosmetics. Certification against it is issued by an independent certification body to a named site, for a defined scope of operations printed on the certificate itself.
Where it mattersIt travels further than any national scheme because it is the same document everywhere, which is why European and Gulf buyers tend to ask for it by name. A certificate is only as wide as its scope: a site certified for emulsions is not thereby certified for aerosols, and that distinction is where audits go wrong.
- 03
FDA facility registration and product listing (United States)
What it isAn administrative filing rather than a certificate. Under the modernised US cosmetic framework, facilities that manufacture or process cosmetics for the US market register with the FDA, and products are listed. The FDA does not review the product on the strength of it and does not issue a mark to display.
Where it mattersIt matters to a Korean project because the registering party is the facility, so what your US importer needs comes from the manufacturing side rather than from your brand. Treat any supplier who presents a registration as an approval or a quality certificate as a warning sign — it is neither.
- 04
EU notification and the responsible person
What it isA role and a filing rather than a certification. A cosmetic placed on the EU market is notified through the CPNP portal, and a responsible person established in the EU carries legal responsibility for it, holds the product information file and is the contact point for the authorities. The UK runs a parallel arrangement with its own notification route and its own responsible person.
Where it mattersThis is the clearest case of something that cannot sit with a Korean manufacturer: the party has to be established in the territory, normally your importer or a contracted provider. We supply the manufacturing-side documentation that party needs, and we say plainly that we cannot act as an EU or UK responsible person.
- 05
Halal certification
What it isCertification that the product and the chain behind it meet Islamic requirements — ingredient origin, processing aids, cleaning and segregation on the line. The schemes are national: Indonesia runs its through BPJPH with MUI in the religious determination step, Malaysia through JAKIM. A certificate issued under one scheme is not automatically recognised by another.
Where it mattersIt reaches back into formulation rather than sitting at the end of it. Animal-derived materials, some emulsifiers and alcohol used as a carrier are the usual points of failure, and they are cheap to change at the brief stage and expensive to change after tooling. Requirements in these markets have been moving, so treat the current position as something to establish for your category and your timing rather than as settled.
- 06
Vegan certification
What it isA private, voluntary scheme rather than a government one. Independent organisations set their own criteria — typically no animal-derived ingredient anywhere in the formula, with rules of their own about testing — and license a mark to products that meet them. There is no single global definition, so which mark you carry is a commercial decision as much as a technical one.
Where it mattersEuropean and North American retail buyers increasingly ask for a named mark rather than the word on its own, and criteria differ enough between schemes that a formula can pass one and fail another. Beeswax, lanolin, carmine, some squalane sources and certain milk-derived actives are where projects get caught — all of them substitutable early, none of them cheaply late.
- 07
ECOCERT and COSMOS
What it isCOSMOS is a private standard for organic and natural cosmetics; ECOCERT is one of the bodies that certifies against it. Certification looks at ingredient origin, which processes are permitted, packaging, and how much of the formula qualifies. It applies to a specific product, audited at a specific site.
Where it mattersEuropean retail is where it carries the most weight. It is the most demanding scheme on this page from a formulator’s point of view, because it constrains not only what goes into the product but how the materials were made — which is why deciding on it after a formula is settled usually means reformulating rather than relabelling.
- 08
Claims about animal testing
What it isNot a certificate but a claim — and one of the most closely policed on a cosmetic label. Two different things get conflated here: what a market permits or restricts in testing, and a private scheme that certifies a company against its own criteria and licenses a mark. Carrying a mark and being permitted to print a phrase are separate questions.
Where it mattersWhat you may print differs by market, and wording that is unremarkable in one place can be treated as misleading in another even where the underlying fact is true. Settle the claim set with every destination in mind before artwork goes to print, and keep the evidence for whatever you decide to say.
The certificates themselves.
Certificates are published here once they are confirmed. We do not fill the space in the meantime.
Questions about certification
Is Seoul Coslab CGMP or ISO 22716 certified?
No — they belong to the manufacturing partner selected for your project, and implying otherwise would be misleading. What we do is more useful anyway: we confirm the current scope and validity for the specific facility and line your product will actually run on, then share that evidence rather than a claim. A certificate is only worth what the plant behind it holds, which is why it matters that we know those plants and work with them under standing agreements.
Why is the document section on this page empty?
Because nothing has been confirmed for publication yet. Documents appear here as they are confirmed. Until then we would rather show nothing than a placeholder, because a grey box in a certification section reads as a claim whether or not it is meant as one.
Which certifications does my project actually need?
It depends on the destination market, the product category and the channel you sell through. Some are asked for by regulators, some only by retailers, and some — vegan and organic marks in particular — are commercial choices that constrain the formula. It is worth settling at the brief stage, because several of them reach back into formulation.
Can you obtain a certification in my brand’s name?
Some certifications attach to a site and are held by the manufacturer; others attach to a product and are applied for by the brand or by its entity in the destination market. We tell you which is which for your specific set, prepare the manufacturing-side documentation, and say plainly where a filing has to be made by someone established locally.
Start Your Project
Let’s Create
What’s Next in Beauty.
Tell us the markets and the channel you are selling into. Which certifications matter — and which are only nice to have — falls out of that.
Start Your Project →This page is general information for manufacturing planning. It is not legal or regulatory advice, it has no legal effect, and no rights can be derived from it. Requirements change by market and over time — before acting on anything here, confirm the current position with the authority concerned or with qualified counsel.