On 9 January 2026 the FDA published the report on PFAS in cosmetics that MoCRA had required it to produce. The headline finding was not that PFAS are dangerous. It was that after a full statutory review, the agency does not have enough data to say either way for most of the PFAS actually being used, and it is not issuing a federal ban.
For an importer or a clinic buying finished goods, a regulator declining to act sounds like the end of an obligation. It is the opposite. The federal government stepping back from a national rule is precisely what leaves five state bans, two more arriving this year, and a supplier questionnaire that nobody has written yet.
What the report actually found
The numbers are worth carrying because they reframe the size of the problem.
FDA identified 51 distinct PFAS intentionally added as ingredients across 1,744 listed cosmetic formulations, which is roughly 0.41 percent of the products in the mandatory cosmetic product listing database as of 30 August 2024. Not a widespread contamination event. A narrow, specific, identifiable set of formulations.
The exposure concentrates in colour cosmetics. The top five product categories containing intentionally added PFAS were eye shadows, leave-on face and neck products, eyeliners, face powders and foundations.
The safety picture is where it gets uncomfortable. FDA prioritised the 25 most frequently used PFAS, representing over 96 percent of total PFAS usage, and concluded that for 19 of those 25, or 76 percent, the toxicological data are incomplete or unavailable. Five were assessed as low concern under intended conditions of use. One, perfluorohexylethyl triethoxysilane, was flagged as potentially concerning at the highest concentrations found in body lotions.
FDA said it will continue monitoring the science and will take appropriate action if concerns emerge for specific ingredients or products. It has not prohibited intentionally added PFAS in cosmetics at federal level.
The states already moved
While the federal review was running, the states legislated. The first wave of prohibitions on intentionally added PFAS in cosmetics took effect on 1 January 2025 in California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington.
The drafting is broad. California’s AB 2771 reaches any cosmetic product containing intentionally added PFAS, which in practice covers makeup, skincare, hair care, deodorants and sun care. Washington’s statute prohibits manufacturing, knowingly selling, offering for sale or distributing such products. Minnesota’s Amara’s Law does the same, and adds a reporting obligation: manufacturers must report to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency by 1 July 2026, describing the product, the PFAS used, the concentration and the function of the PFAS.
Two more dates land this year. Maine’s cosmetics prohibition took effect on 1 January 2026. Connecticut’s takes effect on 1 July 2026, prohibiting distribution, sale or offer for sale of cosmetics with intentionally added PFAS, while allowing products carrying an unavoidable trace quantity to continue to be sold.
That trace-quantity carve-out is the crux of the whole compliance problem. Every one of these laws turns on the word intentionally. Nobody is testing your shipment against a parts-per-billion threshold. They are asking whether a fluorinated compound was put into the formula on purpose and for a technical reason. That is a question about the formulator, not about the finished good.
Why this is a sourcing file, not a lab problem
The instinct is to send product for testing. For most operators that is the wrong first move, and an expensive one.
Note where FDA got its data. It read the mandatory product listings. The listing is where the ingredient statement lives, which means your own MoCRA listing is the primary evidence of what you claim is in your product. A supplier assurance that contradicts your listing is not a defence, it is an inconsistency somebody else can find with a database query.
The second reason it is a sourcing file: intentionally added PFAS in cosmetics are functional. They deliver slip, water resistance, wear and that specific smooth spread in a powder or a long-wear base. A formulator who used one made a performance decision and can tell you which compound and why. A formulator who did not can say so in writing. Either answer takes an email. Neither takes a laboratory.
Where Korean imports actually sit
Korean skincare, the largest share of what most U.S. operators import, is comparatively low exposure. The intentionally-added PFAS concentration is in colour cosmetics, and specifically in long-wear and water-resistant performance formats.
That matters right now because colour is the newest wave of Korean product moving into U.S. retail and clinic retail shelves. Cushions, tints and long-wear bases are exactly the formats where fluorinated performance additives have historically earned their place. A distributor who has spent two years handling serums and sheet masks and is now adding a colour line is stepping into a materially different compliance category without any signal that they have.
Add the geography problem. A brand you carry in five states can be legal in three and prohibited in two, with no change to the formula and no notification from anyone. State-line compliance is not a concept most Korean brand teams have encountered, because Korea does not have one.
What to put in the supplier file this quarter
- Get a written intentionally-added PFAS declaration per SKU, from the manufacturer rather than the export agent, covering the formula as currently produced and not as originally developed.
- Screen your own ingredient statements for fluorinated compounds. Perfluoro, polyfluoro, fluoro prefixes and PTFE. This is a text search across the listings you already filed.
- Map SKUs against states you actually ship to. California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Washington and Maine are live now. Connecticut joins on 1 July 2026.
- Confirm who files the Minnesota report before 1 July 2026, and confirm it in writing. The obligation sits with the manufacturer, and offshore manufacturers routinely assume the U.S. importer is handling it.
- Treat colour cosmetics as a separate onboarding track with its own checklist rather than as an extension of skincare.
- Re-run the declaration on reformulation. A Korean brand changing a supplier mid-year does not consider that a U.S. regulatory event. It is one.
The operator’s view
The FDA report is being read as an all-clear, and it is not one. It is an admission that the toxicological data for three quarters of the PFAS actually used in cosmetics does not exist yet. That gap does not resolve into permanence. It resolves into more state legislation, more plaintiff activity and, eventually, a federal position taken with better data than the agency has today.
The operators who will be comfortable when that happens are the ones who can already answer one question per SKU: was a fluorinated compound intentionally added, yes or no, on manufacturer letterhead. That answer costs almost nothing to collect now and is close to impossible to reconstruct retroactively across a portfolio.
Luxmetics builds this into brand onboarding rather than treating it as a periodic audit, because the practical unit of compliance is the purchase order, not the calendar year. The regulation will keep moving. The file should be finished before it does.