Who checks cosmetics after they reach the shelf in Canada?

In Canada, a new shampoo or face cream doesn’t need government approval before it goes on sale. That surprises a lot of people. It doesn’t mean nobody’s watching, though. Most of the checking on cosmetics happens after they reach the shelf, through a mix of paperwork, inspections, lab tests and border checks. Here’s what that looks like, and where its limits are.

Step one: the notification

Every manufacturer and every importer must notify Health Canada within 10 days of first selling a cosmetic in Canada. The notification lists the product, the company, the type of product and where it’s used, and every ingredient with its concentration. If anything changes, the company has 10 days to update it.

Health Canada is explicit that a notification is not an approval for sale. What it does do is give the regulator a map of what’s on the market and what’s in it, so it can compare ingredients against the Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist and follow up. A product that hasn’t been notified can be denied entry into Canada or removed from sale.

Who does the checking?

Cosmetics fall under Health Canada’s Consumer Product Safety Program, the same program that oversees things like toys and household products. It describes its job as monitoring the marketplace and holding industry responsible for making sure products are safe.

The program’s main tools are:

• Incident reports from consumers, industry and others, reviewed continuously.
• Planned inspection and testing projects for particular product types.
• Laboratory testing at Health Canada’s Product Safety Laboratory and its microbiology lab.
• Border work with the Canada Border Services Agency, to stop non-compliant products before they reach stores.
• Risk tools such as hazard analyses, risk assessments and media monitoring.

Targeted, not random

Here’s the key idea. Health Canada doesn’t sample cosmetics at random. It goes where it expects to find problems. In its own words, higher-risk products with a low degree of compliance are looked at more often than lower-risk products with a good record.

Its planned projects show what that means in practice. Recent cosmetic projects have targeted:

• heavy metals in cosmetics
• cosmetics in pressurized containers, such as hairsprays, dry shampoos, body sprays and deodorants
• tattoo inks and permanent make-up pigments, which count as cosmetics in Canada
• specific ingredients such as p-phenylenediamine (PPD) and cyanoacrylates
• earlier rounds on fragrances, cosmetic wipes and a preservative, methylchloroisothiazolinone

For heavy metals, Health Canada has set limits for impurities it considers technically avoidable: 10 parts per million (ppm) for lead, 3 ppm for arsenic and cadmium, 5 ppm for antimony and 1 ppm for mercury. These metals are everywhere in nature, so tiny traces can’t always be avoided, but manufacturers are expected to keep them as low as they can.

What the inspections find

Two recent reports give a feel for the results.

Aerosol cosmetics, 2023–2024. Health Canada tested 50 cosmetics sold in pressurized containers, 45 of them imported. The outcome: 4 recalls, 7 stop distributions, 29 commitments from companies to fix problems, and 10 products needing no action. Most of the problems found involved labelling.

Tattoo inks and permanent make-up, 2022–2023. Chemical and microbial testing of 30 products, 27 of them imported, led to 3 stop distributions for failing microbial limits (too many germs), 23 commitments to address problems such as labelling and notification, and 4 products with no issues.

Health Canada adds an important caution to every report: because inspectors deliberately pick products more likely to fail, and because sample sizes are very small, the results don’t reflect how compliant the market is overall. A high problem rate in a targeted project doesn’t mean most cosmetics on the shelf have problems.

From a friendly letter to a recall

When Health Canada finds a problem, it matches the response to the risk. Corrective measures range from voluntary compliance to firmer action, including stopping sale and recalling a product.

In practice, most findings end with a company’s written commitment to fix a label, file a missing notification or reformulate. Products with a real health risk, like those failing microbial limits, can be stopped from further distribution or recalled. Recalls and advisories are posted publicly on the Government of Canada’s Recalls and safety alerts site.

The honest limits

Canada’s system for cosmetics is built on a trade-off. The rules put the main responsibility on companies, and Health Canada directs its resources to where the health risks look greatest. That leaves real gaps:

• No approval before sale. Problems are caught after products are on the market, sometimes after people have used them.
• Selective testing. Only a small number of products are tested each year, and in chosen categories.
• Voluntary incident reporting. Companies must report incidents with ordinary consumer products, but not with cosmetics. That makes consumer reports especially valuable.
• Imports. Most products in recent projects were imported, which is why border work matters.

None of this means your moisturizer is suspect. It means the label, the company’s own responsibility and your own attention all play a part. If a product causes a reaction, stop using it and see your doctor or pharmacist if it doesn’t clear up, then report it to Health Canada so it can see the pattern.

To sum up: cosmetics in Canada are notified, not approved, and checked mostly after sale. Health Canada reviews ingredient lists, runs targeted testing projects, works with border officers and can push for fixes, stop sales or recalls. It focuses on the highest risks, so its oversight is real but selective, and your report can help point it in the right direction.