Of all the regulatory obligations that land on a new cosmetic business, weight labelling looks like the simplest. You put a number on the pack and make sure the product matches it. What could be easier? In practice I have seen more small manufacturers trip over quantity labelling than over far more intimidating topics like safety assessments or SCPN/CPNP registration. The rules themselves are not complicated, but the products we make have a habit of not keeping still. They dry out, settle, absorb water and generally refuse to stay the weight they were when they were filled.
What the Law Requires
Every cosmetic product sold in the UK or EU must declare its nominal content, by weight or by volume, at the time of packaging. This comes from Article 19 of the Cosmetics Regulation, which applies in Great Britain in its retained form. There are exemptions for very small packs of under 5 g or 5 ml, free samples and single-application packs, but most products on your shelves will need a declared quantity.
How accurate that declaration has to be is governed by weights and measures law, which in the UK means the Weights and Measures (Packaged Goods) Regulations 2006. These apply to the same products you buy in the supermarket, so cosmetics are treated no differently from jam or breakfast cereal.
The Default Position: Every Pack Must Contain What It Says
The simplest way to comply, and the one I recommend to most small manufacturers, is to make sure that every single pack contains at least the declared quantity. If the label says 100 g, no pack leaves your premises with 99 g in it. Nobody can argue with that, and it requires no statistical sampling or elaborate paperwork.
The cost is a small overfill. To be sure every pack meets the declared weight you have to aim a little above it, because no filling process is perfectly consistent. For a small business filling by hand or on a basic machine, that giveaway is usually a price well worth paying for the peace of mind.
The ℮ Mark: A Scheme, Not a Decoration
You will have noticed the small ℮ symbol printed next to the weight on many products. A surprising number of small brands add it to their labels simply because the big brands do, assuming it is some kind of required mark or a badge of quality. It is neither.
The ℮ mark signifies that the product has been packed under the average quantity system. This allows packers to fill to an average rather than a minimum, which saves product at scale, but in return they must follow three rules, known as the packers’ rules. The average contents of a batch must not be less than the declared quantity. Only a small proportion of packs, no more than one in forty, may fall short by more than a defined amount called the tolerable negative error. And no pack at all may be short by more than twice that tolerable error.
The tolerable negative error depends on pack size. For a 50 g pack it is 9 per cent, or 4.5 g. For packs between 100 g and 200 g it is 4.5 per cent. For packs between 300 g and 500 g it is 3 per cent.
The important point is that putting the ℮ on your label is effectively a claim. You are telling the world, and in particular Trading Standards, that you are operating the average system properly. That means having a documented system of checking, sampling your production, recording the results and keeping those records so that you can demonstrate compliance if asked. If an inspector turns up and asks to see the records supporting your ℮ mark, “we just put it on because everyone does” is not an answer that will go down well.
Using the ℮ mark is entirely your choice. There is no obligation to use it, and many small manufacturers are better off without it. It isn’t even always used by large businesses. The Body Shop got by without it for a couple of decades. But if you do use it, you must work to it. My advice to most start-up brands is to leave it off until your volumes are high enough for the savings in giveaway to justify the discipline of running the system.
Filling Visually: Why “It Looks Full” Is Not Good Enough
Many small manufacturers fill by eye, topping each bottle or jar up to a line that looks right. It is quick and the finished packs look consistent on the shelf, which is understandably appealing. The trouble is that a consistent fill level does not mean a consistent weight. So make sure your nominal weight is below the lowest weight you will get from a visual fill with the pack you are planning on using, with the product you are actually filling it with. (Quick tip – 1ml of water weighs 1g. So if you want to know the volume of your pack, fill it with water. The weight of the water will give you the volume of the pack in mls.)
Glass containers vary in wall thickness, so the internal volume of two apparently identical bottles can differ noticeably. Viscous creams and lotions trap air during filling, and the amount of air varies from pack to pack. Products filled warm will contract as they cool. Density changes from batch to batch as well, particularly with natural ingredients. The result is that two jars filled to exactly the same level can differ in weight by several per cent.
The reliable approach is to fill by weight, or at least to check-weigh your packs, even if you top up to a visual level. A decent set of scales is one of the cheapest pieces of quality equipment you will ever buy.
There is a second side to this. Choosing a container that is too large for its contents, so that the pack looks fuller than it is, can be judged a misleading practice under consumer protection law, even if the declared weight is perfectly accurate. Match your packaging to your product rather than choosing a big jar to create shelf presence.
Products That Dry Out: The Case for an Overage
Some products lose weight throughout their lives, and this is where many small makers get caught out. Handmade soap is the classic example. Even a well-cured bar keeps losing moisture on the shelf, and I have seen soaps lose up to 5 per cent of their weight over their shelf life. A bar that weighed a perfectly correct 100 g when it was wrapped could be down to 95 g a year or two later when a customer, or a Trading Standards officer, puts it on the scales.
Formally, the weights and measures rules focus on the quantity at the time of packing, and you can argue that a bar that has dried out since has not been underfilled. But that is an argument you would rather not have to make, and it depends entirely on your having the filling records to back it up. The sensible solution is to build in an overage, packing each bar slightly above its declared weight so it stays compliant for its whole shelf life. Cure your soaps fully before weighing and wrapping, and consider packaging that slows moisture loss. The same thinking applies to solid shampoo bars, balms in unsealed tins and anything else with a volatile component that can escape.
Bath Salts and Powders: The Settling Problem
Granular and powdered products present a different challenge. Bath salts, bath powders and dusting powders settle during transport and storage as the particles pack more tightly together. The weight does not change, but the fill level drops. A jar that left your premises looking brim full can arrive at the retailer looking a third empty.
This is primarily a problem of appearance and customer perception, but it can shade into the misleading-packaging territory described above. Tapping or vibrating containers during filling to settle the contents before topping up helps a great deal, as does choosing a container sized for the settled volume rather than the freshly poured one. A short note such as “contents may settle” is a sensible belt-and-braces measure.
Dead Sea Salt: A Law Unto Itself
Dead Sea salt deserves a section of its own because it behaves quite unlike ordinary sea salt. It is far richer in magnesium chloride and calcium chloride, both of which are strongly hygroscopic. Indeed, they are deliquescent, meaning they will pull in so much water vapour from the atmosphere that they eventually dissolve in it.
I have seen jars of Dead Sea salt that were perfectly dry when filled develop a pool of brine at the bottom after a few weeks in a humid environment. In extreme cases the salt can literally pull in enough moisture to create a solution. That raises two issues. First, the product clumps, weeps and looks thoroughly unappealing. Second, the weight actually increases, and a good part of what the customer is paying for is atmospheric water.
The answer lies in control. Fill in as dry an environment as you reasonably can, use genuinely moisture-tight packaging with a good seal, keep your bulk stock tightly closed and do not leave salt standing open on the filling bench. If you are blending Dead Sea salt with other ingredients, remember that it will draw moisture from them too, and account for that in your stability work.
The Only Real Rule
After nearly forty years in this industry I have come to the view that almost all of the regulations surrounding quantity labelling boil down to one principle. You have to tell the truth. The number on the pack should honestly represent what the customer is getting, the pack should not suggest there is more inside than there is, and if you make a claim such as the ℮ mark you must be able to back it up.
Understand how your particular product behaves over its shelf life, whether it dries, settles or absorbs, and fill accordingly. Weigh what you fill and keep a record of it. Do that, and weight labelling will be one of the least troublesome parts of running your business.
If you need help with formulation development, stability studies or Cosmetic Product Safety Reports for your products, please get in touch with Colin’s Cosmetic Consultancy.
