Here is a quick guide of what needs to be included on your packaging by law
Are you in the process of designing your perfume packaging?
- One of the remaining pieces of EU legislation that still applies to the UK is Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 on cosmetic products. These standards require any product being applied to the skin to meet certain health and safety standards, but the packaging that product comes in must also be labelled appropriately.
- Products made in the EU require the name or registered business name and address of the company to be printed on the packaging.
- The nominal content at the time of packing the product needs to be printed on the outside of the product. This can either be in weight or in volume.
- The EU’s symbol used for ‘best before’, or the words ‘best used before the end of’ needs to be on the packaging, along with the date. For cosmetics that don’t have a best before date, they must have the following symbol. The number of months that the product is safe to use must be printed within the symbol.


- Information about how the product cannot be used should appear on the packaging.
- A batch number or reference to identify the final product and trace its production process.
- A list of ingredients must be listed on the product packaging. This list must be started with the word “ingredients”.
- The fonts and lettering must be easily legible and visible in terms of the contrast with the background of the packaging.
- Names and addresses can be abbreviated as long as the person and addresses can be easily identified.
- The minimum size of the font is dependent of the volume of the packaging. (see table below)
Contents / Minimum height of lettering
Not exceeding 50g or 50ml | 2mm |
Exceeding 50g or 50ml but not exceeding 200g or 200ml | 3mm |
Exceeding 200g or 200ml but not exceeding 1kg or 1L | 4mm |
Exceeding 1kg or 1l | 6mm |
- The language of the information printed on the primary and secondary packaging of your perfume or cologne is determined by the state of the EU where the business is registered.
Happy designing!

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