Sell homemade soap and skincare

These rules apply in England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland follows EU rules.

Soap and skincare are cosmetic products

A cosmetic product is anything you apply to the body, teeth or mouth to clean it, perfume it, change its appearance, protect it, keep it in good condition or correct body odour. Body soap, bath bombs, balms, lip products and scrubs all qualify.

The rules do not depend on how much you sell. There is no exemption for home makers, craft fairs or small runs, and giving products away counts as supplying them. Soap for washing dishes or laundry is not a cosmetic, because you do not apply it to the body.

Who answers for your products

Every cosmetic product needs a Responsible Person, who carries the legal duties for it. If you make the product in the UK and sell it yourself, you are the Responsible Person. If you sell under your own name a product that someone else made, you take on the role too.

You can instead appoint another person established in the UK. The appointment must be in writing, and they must accept it in writing.

Where and how you make it

Good manufacturing practice applies to a kitchen or spare-room workshop as much as to a factory. Write down how you make each product, and keep records of your premises, equipment, batch numbers and suppliers so you can show the standard was met.

Get each product assessed

Each product needs a safety assessment before you sell or give it away. A qualified safety assessor carries out the assessment and signs the report. Work with the assessor before you settle a recipe and print labels, because the assessor sets out the warnings the label must carry.

Check every ingredient against the annexes to the Regulation before you pay for an assessment. Annex II bans substances, Annex III restricts them, and Annexes IV to VI list the colourants, preservatives and UV filters you can use. Statutory instruments amend the annexes, so check the current text for each recipe.

Keep the product information file at the address you notify. Trading Standards can ask to see it. Keep the safety report up to date as new information about the product emerges.

Packed and loose products

Wrapped bars carry the label information on the wrapper, a tag or an enclosed leaflet. Loose bars, and bars you wrap at the customer's request, need the information on the container they are displayed in or on a notice next to it.

Soap and other small products whose ingredients do not fit on a label can carry the ingredients on a notice next to the container.

Notify each product

Finish your safety report and product information file before you notify, because the notification gives the address where you keep your file. You notify each product separately, and you send the original label and a photo of the packaging once the product is on sale.

What you say about the product

Every claim on a label, website or social media post must be true and backed by evidence you can show. Keep the proof in your product information file.

Do not claim that a product prevents or treats a condition such as eczema. A product presented that way counts as a medicine, whatever its ingredients, and natural or herbal ingredients do not change that. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) looks at your label, website, social media and the customer reviews you display.

Since 6 April 2025, a misleading claim can also breach the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.

After you start selling

If a customer has a serious undesirable effect, such as a reaction that needs hospital treatment, tell OPSS without delay and say what corrective action you have taken. If a product breaks the rules, take corrective action at once, or withdraw or recall it.

If you sell without meeting the rules

Trading Standards enforce the cosmetics rules, and selling a product that breaks them is a criminal offence.

Who to ask

Contact the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) with questions about the SCPN service. Before you describe a product as treating a condition, ask MHRA for a borderline decision. For anything else, including your label and product information file, ask your local Trading Standards service.