What your cosmetic label must include in Pakistan

A label is the cheapest part of your product and the most expensive thing to get wrong. Reprinting ten thousand cartons because the net content is in the wrong unit is a bad week. Discovering that one word on the front moved your product into a different regulator's remit is a bad year.

This is what has to be on a cosmetic label in Pakistan, and what to watch for beyond the checklist.

The marking a skin cream has to carry

Pakistan Standard PS 3228 covers skin creams, and its marking clause is the clearest statement of the baseline. In the 2017 revision, every pack carries:

• The name or type of the cream.
• The manufacturer's name and/or registered trade mark.
• The net amount, in grams or millilitres.
• A batch or code number.
• The date of manufacture and the date of expiry.
• A list of key ingredients.
• Any other statutory information that applies to the product.

The PS Standard Mark itself is optional and only usable if the manufacturer holds the licence for it. The standard also recommends skin-type labelling — "for dry skin", "for oily skin" — which is useful commercially as well as informatively.

Other categories have their own Pakistan Standards; shampoo, toothpaste, toilet soap, hair cream, hair dyes and skin powder are all on the compulsory list, each with its own number. The marking principle is consistent even where the technical requirements differ.

Batch number and expiry are not optional detail

These two get treated as afterthoughts and they are the ones that matter most when something goes wrong. A batch number is what lets you recall one production run instead of everything you have ever made. An expiry date has to be justified by stability data rather than chosen because twenty-four months sounds reassuring.

Print them so they survive. Ink-jetted codes on a shrink sleeve rub off in transit; a code that cannot be read is a code you do not have. Leave a designated, uncoated area on the artwork for the batch and date rather than letting the coder find its own space after the design is signed off. Stability, and the shelf life it justifies, is covered in PCSIR testing for cosmetics.

Ingredients: list them properly

Use INCI names. They are the international convention, they are what a regulator, a dermatologist and an export customer expect to see, and they remove the ambiguity that marketing names create. "Vitamin B3" is a marketing phrase; niacinamide is an ingredient.

Where you make a feature of an active, being specific is both more honest and more persuasive — "niacinamide 10%" says something that "with vitamin B3 complex" does not. If you claim a percentage on the front, your batch records need to support it, because that is a claim like any other.

PS 3228 also requires the ingredients of a skin cream to be of halal origin, referencing the Pakistan Standard guideline for halal cosmetics and personal-care products. That is a requirement about what is in the product. Printing a halal logo is separate: for that you need certification from a body accredited by PNAC, which audits ingredients, suppliers, process and the label itself.

The claims problem, which is the real one

Everything above is a checklist and checklists are easy. The part that changes your regulatory route is the copy on the front of the pack.

A plain cosmetic making cosmetic claims sits under PSQCA and its Pakistan Standard. Add a drug substance, or make a therapeutic claim, and the product becomes a medicated cosmetic or a derma-care product — a different route entirely, through DRAP enlistment under the Health and OTC division. PS 3228 says this itself: creams intended for other uses fall under the drug legislation, and creams with therapeutic claims are outside the standard's scope.

The line is narrower than most brand owners expect:

• Workable on a cosmetic label: helps improve the look of uneven tone; visibly smoother; helps skin feel hydrated; supports the skin barrier; the appearance of fine lines.
• Not workable: treats acne; cures pigmentation; repairs damaged skin; heals; anti-bacterial; dermatologically proven to eliminate.

Both lists can describe the same jar. That is the point. The second list is not squeamishness on our part — those are therapeutic claims, and using them turns a cosmetic into something that needs a different file, a different fee and a different timeline.

Once a product is enlisted, there is a further step people miss: the rules require DRAP to review the label and leaflet, and advertising of enlisted products needs review before it runs. Your Instagram copy is inside that boundary, not outside it.

Six mistakes we catch at artwork stage

1. A therapeutic verb in the strapline. Almost always avoidable — the same benefit can nearly always be said in cosmetic language without losing its force.
2. Net content in the wrong unit or missing entirely. Creams in grams, liquids in millilitres, and it has to be on the pack the customer buys, not only on the carton.
3. No room left for the batch code. Designed edge to edge, then the coder has nowhere to print.
4. Ingredients in marketing names. Fine in the sales copy, not in the ingredient list.
5. A halal logo without a certificate behind it. The ingredients being halal in origin and the pack being entitled to a certifier's mark are two different things.
6. Certification marks the brand is not licensed to use. A standard mark belongs to the licence holder, and a manufacturer's certification is not automatically yours to print.

Get the label and the formula into the same conversation

The reason we print in-house at Dermis & Dosis Print is not only speed. It is that the people printing your carton can see the formula, the test results and the claim at the same time, so a claim that does not survive scrutiny gets challenged before a plate is made rather than after a pallet is delivered.

Practically, that means artwork is reviewed against the marking requirements for your category, against your own test data, and against the claims your regulatory route allows — before it goes to press. See packaging and printing for the formats and finishes, and how it works for where artwork sits in the sequence.

If you are a clinic putting your own name on a product, the label is where your professional reputation is printed. For Doctors covers what that means in practice, and DRAP enlistment explained covers the route your product will take. If you already have artwork and want it checked, send it to us — it is a quicker conversation than a reprint.