Shopee, Lazada or TikTok pulled my cosmetic listing for "HSA notification". What now?
Short version: in Singapore every cosmetic must be notified to the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) by the company that puts it on sale, before it is sold, and again every year. The platforms remove listings that break this rule, and selling without notifying is an offence. The fix is paperwork, not a lab test, and most of it can be checked for free on this page.
1. Is your brand already notified?
HSA publishes the full list of notified cosmetics. Type your brand or company name. Found means someone has already notified it. Not found may mean nobody has, or that it was filed under the maker's or distributor's company name, so search the company too.
2. Are your ingredients allowed?
Singapore follows the ASEAN cosmetic rules: a list of banned substances, a list of substances allowed only within limits, and lists of allowed colourants, preservatives and UV filters. Paste your label's ingredient list and every line is compared with those lists. Colour codes such as "CI 15850" are checked against the allowed-colourant list.
3. Does your label show what the law requires?
Product name and purpose, how to use, full ingredient list heaviest first, country of manufacture, the Singapore seller's name and address, contents, batch number, a month/year date, and any warnings. The tick list is on the main page.
4. Notify HSA
- Only a registered business can notify, through its business login on HSA's online system. An individual cannot, so a hobby seller registers a business first.
- One notification covers one product; a range of shades is declared on the same product.
- HSA charges its own fee per notification, per variant: S$13 for a single product or for each of its first 3 variants (a variant is a shade or a scent; a pack size is not one), or S$28 each for products used around the eyes or lips, oral and dental care, and hair dyes with diamine compounds; S$8 for each variant after the third. So a 3-shade lipstick is 3 x S$28 to HSA. The same fees apply to the yearly re-notification (HSA fees page, re-read 9 Oct 2026). The notification is a declaration you sign; HSA does not test or approve the product, and you stay responsible for it.
- The notification is valid for one year. Re-notify before it lapses or the listing problem returns.
- Keep the notification number. It is what the platform asks for.
5. Or have it done for you
What you are paying for, and what I am not. HSA does not check what you file: the acknowledgement is issued automatically, and HSA says itself that it does not evaluate or approve the product. You tick a declaration that your product complies, and the fine for getting that wrong is up to S$20,000. The S$99 buys the looking: every ingredient against the current ASEAN lists with the rule beside it, your label against the nine required items, and the sheet laid out as HSA's form asks, so you sign knowing what you are signing. I am not HSA, not a lawyer, and never the company responsible for your product; you file under your own company and it stays yours. If something I marked as allowed turns out to be wrong, I redo the sheet free and refund my fee.
Founding price S$99 per product (up to 3 shades) for the first 10 customers, plus HSA's own fee which you pay to HSA. Within three working days you get: the register check, a written verdict on every ingredient with its rule, the label check, and the notification sheet laid out as HSA's form asks, to copy into your business login. A reminder lands in your inbox a month before the yearly re-notification; the renewal is S$69.
Based on HSA's published pages on cosmetic product notification (submit notification and re-notification) and the ASEAN Cosmetic Directive annexes and labelling requirements as published by HSA. Rules and fees change; HSA's own pages are the final word. Nothing here is legal advice.