Cosmetic Sales - The Difference between Wholesale, White Label and Flexi Assessment Products?

The UK cosmetics sector has many regulations.  One such regulation is the requirement for each product put onto the market to have an RP - responsible person.  Who this RP is, depends on whether you are making the products yourself or not, and where you purchase your finished products from if you are not.

A responsible person is the person taking responsibility for the products. This is an individual, though the company name can be stated along with the address on the packaging.

Simply put we can break down the options into 3 categories:

1. Wholesale - whereby you as a small business purchase ready made products at a discounted rate from a brand that you choose.  You would keep the existing branding and sell at retail price in your shop or online store.  The responsible person remains as the original brand or manufacturer.
2. White Label - whereby you purchase ready made products for your small business from a manufacturer and brand them as your own.  There are many takes on this, but cosmetic regulations state that if you are the brand then you must be the responsible person named on the packaging.
3. Flexi Assessments - whereby you purchase a pre-assessed cosmetic safety report from a company such as ours, which allows you to create a certain number of variations of one product type.  This is then your own manufactured and branded product and requires your details as the responsible person.

For more on this topic and other regulations required for selling cosmetics in the UK, see our resources section.