Shandong DoraDoSun Biotechnology Co., Ltd. was fined 50,000 yuan (about $7,848) for falsely claiming that the product has the effect of delaying skin aging when promoting the “SANBAO MULTI-EFFECT FREEZE-DRIED POWDER SET” with the favorable rate reaching 100% on live streaming.
On April 14, Beijing time (the following occurrences are all Beijing time), the State Administration for Market Regulation announced the first batch of classic illegal cases that are closely related to the masses and have a bad nature. Among them, a number of cases involved unfair competition behaviours such as false publicity, counterfeiting and confusion in the medical aesthetic market. In the reported cases, DoraDoSun was also among them, which ranked first last year in the sales of beauty and personal care categories in Kwai, China’s short video live e-commerce platform. DoraDoSun was informed mainly because its founder made false publicity in the brand’s live streaming this time.
On September 5, 2021, when the founder Li Haizhen conducted live streaming of the “SANBAO MULTI-EFFECT FREEZE-DRIED POWDER SET” it sold, DoraDoSun announced that the product “contains L−(+)−ascorbic acid, Ectoin, coenzyme Q10 and other ingredients and the above ingredients have the effect of delaying skin aging” through the display board. Ms Li also publicized that the product has a 110,000 praise rate of 100% and emphasized that all the products of “SANBAO MULTI-EFFECT FREEZE-DRIED POWDER SET” are a hundred percent of praise rate.
However, DoraDoSun has not been able to prove that the “SANBAO MULTI-EFFECT FREEZE-DRIED POWDER SET” has the same efficacy as the main ingredients such as contains L−(+)−ascorbic acid, Ectoin and coenzyme Q10 after investigation. And the platform data showed that the evaluation of “A GIFT FULL OF LOVE” reached a “ninety-nine percent of praise rate”, which was not up to 100%.
DoraDoSun was fined 50,000 yuan (about $7,848) for making false or misleading commercial publicity about the features and user evaluations of his products.
As we all know, in the context of the market where consumers are paying more attention to the efficacy of products, cosmetic efficacy claims have been a more eye-catching topic in the field of cosmetics in China. It is undeniable that appropriate product publicity will boost the reputation of the product, which can strengthen consumers’ preferences for such brands effortlessly.
However, some brands often “take advantage of the loopholes of policies” to publish some advertisements misunderstood by consumers, resulting in unfair competition in the market and damaging consumer trust as well.
To this end, China is also constantly introducing relevant supporting regulations and carrying out relevant special actions to purify the Chinese cosmetics market.
China’s Cosmetics Supervision and Administration Regulations, which came into effect on 1 January 2021, stipulate that the efficacy of cosmetics should base on sufficient science. At the same time, China will implement Measures for the Administration of Cosmetic Labels on May 1 this year, which also refines the twelve types of content prohibited by labeling as follows: “the use of medical terms, the use of false, exaggerated and absolute words to give false facts or mislead consumers” and so on.
On October 11, 2021, National Medical Products Administration also issued a notice that it will carry out a special action of “cleaning both online and offline environment” for cosmetics from October 2021 to October 2022. It is understood that the action will focus on rectifying the prominent problems of online sales in China, strengthening the main responsibility of cosmetics e-commerce operators, standardizing the order of online sales in the cosmetics market and ensuring the safety of public makeup.
False publicity has always been the hardest hit area for cosmetics companies to break the law. The fact that the parent company of DoraDoSun was publicly notified by the State Administration for Market Regulation as a typical example of illegality means that the highest regulatory authorities adhere to the determination to punish false propaganda of cosmetics with a zero-tolerance attitude.
