The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced on the 7th that it will revise the "Regulations on Safety Standards for Cosmetics" to designate 1,2,4-Trihydroxybenzene (THB) as a prohibited ingredient for cosmetics and add it to the banned list.
This action follows the improvement recommendations made by the Regulatory Reform Committee in March last year and is based on the safety verification results conducted by the Cosmetic Ingredient Safety Verification Committee (hereinafter referred to as the Verification Committee). The Verification Committee recently submitted a safety verification report to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety stating that THB has a potential genotoxicity risk, and since there is no threshold to establish toxicity criteria, it is impossible to set safety standards for human exposure, raising safety concerns if consumers continue to use it.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety plans to add THB to the list of prohibited cosmetic ingredients as a preventive measure by issuing a draft revision of the "Regulations on Safety Standards for Cosmetics" for administrative notice from today until the 11th, and after regulatory review by the Regulatory Reform Committee, the notice will be amended.
Once the notice is revised, THB will no longer be allowed for use in cosmetic manufacturing. However, products already manufactured before the revision can be sold until October 1, 2024.
A representative product manufactured with the THB ingredient is Modamoda's "Pro Change Black Shampoo," commonly known as a "dye shampoo." Since the controversy over the risk of THB, Modamoda has suspended the official sale of "Pro Change Black Shampoo" during the verification process.
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