South Korea Updates Safety and Labelling Standards for Risk Concerned Products

South Korea’s Ministry of Environment revised the Designation of Risk Concerned Products and the Safety and Labeling Standards (hereafter referred to as “standard”) and published it by MoE Announcement No.2018-12 on 22 Jan 2018. It came into effect immediately.

Manufacture or importation of risk concerned products requires product testing in qualified labs every three years to verify compliance with the safety standards. The revision this time is mainly focused on supplementation of testing methods and improvement of labelling requirements.

① Supplement testing methods (Annex 3 of the standard)

• For dehumidifying agent for home use, instructions for metals migration testing were supplemented for Pb, Cd, As, Hg and Cr6+

• For volatile organic compounds used in risk concerned products, testing methods were supplemented for the following substances

• For spray products of cleaners, air fresheners, deodorants, etc., pre-treatment methods and instrumental method of analysis were supplemented for OIT (octylisothiazolinone, CAS No.26530-20-1) and other 12 biocidal active substances

② Improve labeling requirements (Annex 7 of the standard)

For detergent products (e.g. cleaners, synthetic detergents, bleaching agents, fabric softeners, etc.), if the product contains 0.01% or more of a spice extract (26 kinds listed below) which are associated with spice allergy then the ingredients should be labelled accordingly. After revision, 2 of the 26 spices were substituted with their corresponding chief ingredients more suitable for experimental analysis.

The details of the two substances are specified as below.