Cosmetic Self-media Yanantang Got Penalized for Violating the Advertising Law

Recently, Diary Biotec, a parent company of China's cosmetic self-media Yanantang, was penalized for 1500 USD because its Yanantang WeChat official account advertised products with medical words such as bacteriostatic inflammation, anti-allergy relief.

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CHAILEEDO has lately known from the official website of the Shanghai Administration for Market Regulation that Diary Biotec (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (short named Diary Biotec) was penalized for 1500 USD because its WeChat official account Yanantang advertised cosmetic products with medical words such as “bacteriostatic inflammation, anti-allergy relief”.

According to the written decision of administrative penalty, during China Standard Time of January 7 and February 11 in 2022, Diary Biotec has put out an advertisement on its WeChat official account Yanantang, which used medical words such as “bacteriostatic inflammation, anti-allergy relief” for the introduction of its two products, FACIPHER Activating Extract Essence 5ml, and FACIPHER Regenerate Restoring Serum 5ml.

Therefore, Shang Yangpu District Administration for Market Regulation has identified that these medical words used for cosmetic product advertisements have violated the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China. For this reason, the market regulator mandated Diary Biotec to stop the advertisement and eliminate its corresponding influence, and this company received administrative punishment of 1500 USD.

From the source of the public material, we can know that Yangantang was founded in 2016 and started as a self-media, focusing on the content of popularizing knowledge about skincare, makeup, and Aesthetic Medicine.

In 2019, Yangantang has launched its self-owned brand: Dairy. In the new brand’s Tmall official flagship store, it has 21 SKU, which is mainly dominated by the category of functional essence, among that, the Dairy Olive VC Essence has been a top-selling product with a retail price of 33 USD and monthly sales of over 3000 pieces.

It is worth mentioning that Yanantang is not alone in this kind of penalization. According to the statistics collected by CHAILEEDO, though not very complete, since 2021, there have been over 20 companies subjected to administrative punishment due to the usage of medical words for cosmetic products under their brands. There are also some famous import brands, such as Avène and Foltene.

According to the written decision of administrative penalty, in January 2022, Avène’s Weibo account “Avène Doctors Face to Face” posted an advertisement including words like “Avène Spring Water has been validated by in vitro and clinical research for its function of soothing, anti-inflammatory, and anti-irritating...”. Because of this, its Weibo registered company Pierfarber (Shanghai) Cosmetics Trading Co., LTD has been penalized for 15,000 USD by the Shang Yangpu District Administration for Market Regulation.

As a matter of fact, China’s regulation department has always been attaching much attention to striking cosmetics advertisements using medical terminology. Before this, CHAILEEDO has been informed by the staff who works for Shanghai Chongming District Administration for Market Regulation, “It is illegal for the cosmetics advertising to use terms containing words that mixed with medical treatment methods or measures, or that will easily mislead consumers to think them as medical terminology. Cosmetic enterprises are better to avoid these kinds of words, otherwise, they will possibly be penalized.”

What’s more, besides the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China, Regulation on the Supervision and Administration of Cosmetics also clearly stipulated that cosmetics label is forbidden to say or imply anything that the products have medical functions. In other words, whether in the Cosmetics Regulation, Advertising Law, or the notice documents issued by National Medical Products Administration, it has been underscored many times that medical words are forbidden in cosmetics advertisements. The frequent penalization for cosmetics companies violating this regulation is a reminder for the industry that their unregulated developing times are gone, they must observe the laws and regulations in practice. Otherwise, they will receive due punishment for it.