Beauty products, grooming and hygiene

Helpful information on the advertising rules for beauty, grooming and hygiene products, and examples of previous Advertising Standards Authority rulings in this area.

Over the years, demand for glitzy products and procedures designed to help us look younger, healthier and more beautiful, has created a multi-million pound industry. But this industry is competitive and it is one that plays heavily on aesthetic appeal to promote its products. While there’s nothing wrong with painting a positive picture, there is a line to be drawn to ensure that ads don’t over-exaggerate the benefits that a beauty, grooming or hygiene product can have. That’s why we have strict rules in place to protect consumers from potentially misleading or socially irresponsible ads for beauty products.

The main areas of complaint we see for ads for beauty, grooming and hygiene products are around the use of post-production techniques and whether advertisers can prove the claims they are making.

Like all ads, advertisers marketing beauty, grooming and hygiene products must be able to provide evidence for any claims they are making in their ads about the efficacy of their product. This includes claims like “65% reduction in the appearance of wrinkles”, “8/10 women agreed their skin looked smoother” and “The UK’s number one shampoo for coloured hair.”

Whilst our rules do allow for the use of airbrushing and other post-production techniques, advertisers should make clear that these techniques have been used through the use of superimposed qualifications or disclaimers, and they should not be used to such an extent that they exaggerate the capabilities of the product. Similarly, the use of “before” and “after” pictures are allowed but not if post-production techniques were only used on the “after” picture.

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Latest rulings

Hismile Pty Ltd
- Upheld
- Social media (paid ad)
- 03 April 2024
Two paid-for TikTok ads made misleading claims about the range of flavours produced and sold by the advertiser.
BPerfect Ltd
- Upheld
- Social media (influencer or affiliate ad)
- 06 March 2024
A TikTok video on Stephanie Vavron’s account was not obviously identifiable as an ad.
Vir Health Ltd t/a Numan
- Upheld
- Television
- 06 March 2024
A TV ad for a hair loss treatment guaranteed the efficacy of the product, breaking the Code.
Coty UK Ltd t/a Coty UK Ltd
- Upheld
- 20 December 2023
A paid-for Facebook ad for Rimmel London, seen on 9 September 2023, included the caption “Get ready to slay this back to school season [books emoji] [stars emoji] Get 25% off Multi-Tasker Concealer and other Rimmel faves with code B2S25 only at lookfantastic.com”. The post included a video of influencer ...

View all rulings

Beauty products, grooming and hygiene

Helpful information on the advertising rules for beauty, grooming and hygiene products, and examples of previous Advertising Standards Authority rulings in this area.

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Hismile Pty Ltd

BPerfect Ltd

Vir Health Ltd t/a Numan

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Popular advice

Before and after photos

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Relevant codes

History of self-regulation