Scope
MFDS Notice No. 2024-9 applies to cosmetics manufactured, imported, or distributed in Korea. Article 6 sets safety-management standards for marketed cosmetics, including trace-detection allowances when listed substances were not intentionally added and complete technical removal is impossible.
Exact limit and units
| Metal | Matrix | Limit | Unit | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lead | Powder products using clay as raw material | 50 | micrograms/g | unintentional trace presence in marketed cosmetic product |
| Lead | Other cosmetic products | 20 | micrograms/g | unintentional trace presence in marketed cosmetic product |
| Nickel | Eye makeup products | 35 | micrograms/g | unintentional trace presence in marketed cosmetic product |
| Nickel | Color cosmetic products | 30 | micrograms/g | unintentional trace presence in marketed cosmetic product |
| Nickel | Other cosmetic products | 10 | micrograms/g | unintentional trace presence in marketed cosmetic product |
| Arsenic | Cosmetic products | 10 | micrograms/g | unintentional trace presence in marketed cosmetic product |
| Mercury | Cosmetic products | 1 | micrograms/g | unintentional trace presence in marketed cosmetic product |
| Antimony | Cosmetic products | 10 | micrograms/g | unintentional trace presence in marketed cosmetic product |
| Cadmium | Cosmetic products | 5 | micrograms/g | unintentional trace presence in marketed cosmetic product |
How tested
Article 6 points testing to attached Table 4, while allowing other scientifically and reasonably valid in-house standards where recognized. The extracted methods appendix includes procedures for lead, nickel, arsenic, mercury, antimony, and cadmium.
Enforcement posture
These are statutory Korean cosmetic safety standards under the Cosmetics Act. The clause applies when the substances were not intentionally added and their unintentional origin and technical irreducibility are objectively confirmed.
History of changes
The notice history lists amendments through MFDS Notice No. 2024-9, dated 7 February 2024. The 2024 PDF supersedes the earlier 2023-17 version for this ingest pass.
How it compares
Korea splits lead and nickel by cosmetic product type, unlike the simpler ASEAN-style finished-cosmetic tables. Arsenic, mercury, antimony, and cadmium are stated as single all-cosmetic trace limits.
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 |