Scope
Release Version 3.0 of the ASEAN guideline provides contaminant limits for marketed cosmetic products. It covers microbial contaminants and heavy-metal contaminants; only the heavy-metal limits are recorded here.
Exact limit and units
| Species | Matrix | Limit | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| tHg | cosmetic products | NMT 1 mg/kg or 1 mg/L (1 ppm) | cosmetic product |
| Pb | cosmetic products | NMT 20 mg/kg or 20 mg/L (20 ppm) | cosmetic product |
| tAs | cosmetic products | NMT 5 mg/kg or 5 mg/L (5 ppm) | cosmetic product |
| Cd | cosmetic products | NMT 5 mg/kg or 5 mg/L (5 ppm) | cosmetic product |
| Cd | cosmetic products in Thailand | NMT 3 mg/kg or 3 mg/L (3 ppm) | cosmetic product |
The cadmium value for Thailand is listed as a country-specific footnote to the ASEAN cadmium row.
How tested
The guideline states that mercury, lead, arsenic, and cadmium testing follows ASEAN Cosmetic Method ACMTHA05. The source does not reproduce a full analytical-performance table in the limit section.
Enforcement posture
The document is an ASEAN guideline for contaminant limits in marketed cosmetics. The guideline states that more stringent limits may be applied as appropriate, and it records Thailand’s more stringent cadmium limit as a country-specific footnote.
History of changes
The version history states that heavy-metal contamination limits were first set by the 8th ASEAN Cosmetic Scientific Body meeting, that cadmium was added through the 22nd ACSB and 22nd ASEAN Cosmetic Committee meeting in May 2015, and that Release Version 3.0 was adopted at the 30th ACSB meeting on 18-19 June 2019.
How it compares
The regional ASEAN values align with several national cosmetic impurity-limit sheets in the region: mercury 1 ppm, lead 20 ppm, arsenic 5 ppm, and cadmium 5 ppm, with Thailand applying a stricter cadmium value of 3 ppm.
Sources
Update history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Change | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| a8052bb | 2026-08-09 | major | 1 source added; contamination-profile values revised; 7 sections added |