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On 28 October, India’s drug regulator cancelled the import registration of FatX, a South Korean product registered here as a cosmetic, because its importer’s website sold it as a treatment that dissolves fat cells. The order restates a rule many beauty brands brush against: a cosmetic may cleanse, beautify or change how you look, but once it claims to treat the body, the regulator reads it as a drug.

An open jar of white face cream on a bathroom shelf

What CDSCO did

The product, FatX solution, was imported by Delhi-based Tekno Midas Aesthetics, Business Standard reported. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) issued a show-cause notice on 10 August, citing the definition of a cosmetic under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, and Rule 36 of the Cosmetics Rules, 2020. The company replied on 1 September. The Central Licensing Authority found the reply inconclusive and unsatisfactory.

The company then asked to surrender its registration voluntarily. The regulator’s order, dated 28 October, cancelled the import registration certificate under Rule 16 with immediate effect. The order put the problem in one line: “On the website, the product is being marketed as a treatment for dissolving fat cells and reducing the size of fat cells.”

Where the law draws the line

Section 3(aaa) of the 1940 Act defines a cosmetic as an article applied to the human body for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness or altering appearance. Dissolving fat cells is none of those. So CDSCO treated the website’s claims as drug claims, which a cosmetic registration does not cover.

Rule 36 adds a second test: “No cosmetic may purport or claim to purport or convey any idea which is false or misleading to the intending user.” Read together, the two provisions mean a cosmetic can fall foul of the rules either because it claims to do more than a cosmetic can, or because what it claims is not true.

The website, not just the label

The regulator’s objection, as reported, was that the claims on the importer’s website did not match the claims on the product label it had approved. Imported cosmetics must be registered with the Central Licensing Authority before they enter India, through an application in Form COS-1 under Rule 12, and approved products receive a certificate in Form COS-2 under Rule 13.

The FatX order shows that the registration is judged against how a product is actually sold, including online. Rule 16 lets the authority suspend or cancel a registration if the manufacturer, its authorised agent or the importer breaks its conditions, after giving them a chance to respond and recording its reasons in writing.

A second warning, from the other end

In September, CDSCO’s cosmetics division flagged a different kind of problem. A public health alert dated 8 September named Goree Beauty Cream and Chandni Whitening Cream, both made by Lahore-based companies. Neither had an import registration certificate, and the notice said the products “contains excessive heavy metals beyond the specified limits”, which may pose health risks including toxic effects. CDSCO directed businesses and individuals not to sell, distribute or advertise the two products, and told consumers who had already bought them not to use them.

Imports of goods from Pakistan have been barred by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade since 2 May 2025. Even so, Business Today, citing Business Standard, reported that listings appeared on major e-commerce platforms, some labelled “Made in India”. Amazon removed a listing after finding the origin information incorrect, and Meesho said the product had slipped past an earlier delisting because India had been entered as its origin. In July 2026, the Drugs Controller General of India had already asked state regulators and CDSCO offices to step up surveillance of imported cosmetics sold without valid registration.

What to check before you buy

CDSCO’s own advice in the September alert is practical. On any cosmetic, look for a manufacturing licence number, the manufacturer’s details, a batch number, and manufacturing and expiry dates. An imported product should also carry its import registration number.

Complaints about domestic products go to the State Drugs Controller, and those about imports go to the Drugs Controller General of India. The FatX case adds a check that no label can do for you: when a cream or serum is sold as dissolving fat or treating a condition, that is a claim Indian law does not allow a cosmetic to make.

What to watch

Whether CDSCO applies the same reading to other beauty products sold online with treatment-style claims, and whether marketplaces tighten checks on country of origin and registration details after the Goree and Chandni listings. Both cases point the same way: the regulator is looking past the label to where, and how, beauty products are actually sold.