Before you do anything else, you need to understand one distinction: is your product a cosmetic or a therapeutic good?

In Australia, this is regulated, enforced, and the line is thinner than most people realise.

A cosmetic is a product intended to be applied to the human body to change its appearance, cleanse, perfume, or protect it. It affects how something looks or feels. A therapeutic good diagnoses, prevents, or treats a condition. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) regulates therapeutic goods under the Therapeutic Goods Act. The ACCC oversees cosmetic claims, advertising, and labelling.

The problem isn't that people don't know the difference in theory. It's that they write copy that accidentally crosses the line. "Reduces the appearance of redness" is cosmetic. "Reduces redness caused by rosacea" is therapeutic. "Hydrates skin" is cosmetic. "Treats dry skin conditions" is therapeutic. "Firms and lifts the appearance of skin" is cosmetic. "Reduces skin laxity" starts getting complicated depending on context.

If your product is a therapeutic good, it must be listed or registered on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) before it can be supplied. That is not a fast, cheap, or simple process. Trying to sell an unregistered therapeutic good is a serious offence. Many brands accidentally sit in this category because someone wrote compelling copy without understanding the legal implications.

This distinction needs to be settled before you write a word of your label, website, or social content. Get it wrong and you're reprinting, rewriting, and potentially facing enforcement action — not a hypothetical risk. The TGA actively monitors the market and issues infringement notices.

Australian cosmetic labelling requirements are specific and mandatory. Getting this right before you go to print saves you from an expensive reprint after 3,000 units have arrived from your manufacturer.

Every cosmetic product sold in Australia must include: the product name and a description of its purpose; net contents — weight or volume; the name and address of the responsible person — the Australian business responsible for ensuring the product complies with regulations (this can be the brand, an importer, or a distributor, but there must be one and they must be identifiable); full ingredient listing in INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) format, in descending order of concentration; any warnings or cautionary statements relevant to the formulation; and country of origin, where a claim is made.

INCI names matter. You can't list "vitamin C" — you list L-Ascorbic Acid. You can't list "niacinamide" without the INCI name. There's no flexibility on this. Your manufacturer should provide the full INCI list in correct format as part of your product documentation.

Allergen declaration is worth calling out specifically. The European standard — 26 fragrance allergens declared above threshold — is not yet legally mandated in Australia, but it's increasingly expected by retailers and the regulatory landscape is moving in that direction. Building it in now saves a label revision later.

Font size, legibility, and placement requirements exist under Australian Consumer Law and the Competition and Consumer Regulations. "Too small to read" is not a compliance defence.

Your claims are regulated. Not vaguely, not aspirationally — regulated, with enforcement.

The ACCC requires that any claim you make about your product must be truthful, not misleading, and capable of being substantiated. This applies to your packaging, website, social media, email marketing, influencer briefs, and anywhere else your product is described publicly.

What substantiation looks like depends on the claim. "Dermatologist tested" requires that it was actually tested by a dermatologist and you have documentation. "Clinically proven to hydrate" requires clinical data, not a manufacturer's internal assessment. "Natural" or "clean" are heavily scrutinised — there's no official definition, which means the ACCC looks at whether a reasonable consumer would be misled by how you're using the term in context.

Greenwashing is a live enforcement priority right now. "Sustainable", "eco-friendly", "biodegradable" — all need to be accurate and provable. The ACCC has taken action against beauty brands specifically. Before you lock copy, run every claim against this test: can you prove it with documentation you currently hold? If the answer is "we'll get around to testing that" or "our manufacturer said so verbally," it's not substantiated.

Yeah, I know. It's fkn annoying. But they're not safe.

The Australian cosmetics market is full of brands making unsubstantiated claims, using "natural" and "clean" as interchangeable marketing terms, and selling products with labels that wouldn't survive a compliance audit. It's visible, it's common, and it creates the entirely reasonable impression that the rules are loosely enforced suggestions rather than actual law.

Here's why that impression is dangerous.

Enforcement is not random. The TGA and ACCC don't audit every brand simultaneously — they respond to complaints, they monitor high-visibility claims, and they run targeted campaigns in specific categories. The brand that's been non-compliant for three years without consequence isn't safe. They're just not yet visible. The moment a competitor files a complaint, a journalist picks up a story, or your brand gets big enough to attract scrutiny, that history becomes a liability.

Retailers accelerate this risk. The moment you're ranging with a major pharmacy or being considered by a national retailer, your compliance position gets examined. Buyers ask for documentation. Category managers escalate queries. If there's a gap — an unsubstantiated claim, a missing safety assessment, a label that doesn't meet requirements — you either fix it fast or lose the opportunity. Some brands have had ranges pulled after launch because the documentation didn't hold up.

There's also a competitive intelligence angle that's under-discussed. Established brands with proper compliance infrastructure have real incentive to report new entrants making claims they can't substantiate. It's not uncommon and it's entirely legal.

The brands getting away with it are either lucky, small enough to be invisible, or one complaint away from a very bad few months. None of those are a strategy.

If your formulation uses an ingredient that isn't already in commercial use in Australia — including certain naturally-derived ingredients, novel actives, or anything brought in from overseas markets where it may be approved but hasn't been used here — it may require assessment under the Australian Industrial Chemicals Introduction Scheme (AICIS).

AICIS replaced NICNAS in 2020 and takes a risk-categorised approach. Low-hazard, low-exposure chemicals may only require notification. Higher-risk chemicals require assessment before they can be introduced commercially. The timeline can be significant — weeks to months depending on the category — and you cannot legally use the ingredient until assessment is complete.

The practical implication: if your formulation brief includes novel ingredients from Korean or European launches you want to bring to Australia, check AICIS registration status before your manufacturer gets excited about the formula. An ingredient widely used in Europe can be legally unavailable for commercial use in Australia. Finding that out after you've finalised the formula and started stability testing is expensive.

Your manufacturer should be able to flag this — but don't assume they will. Ask directly. Get it in writing.