South Korea: Punished For Exaggerated Ads

18 May 2010

The Korea Food and Drug Administration has recently reproved French cosmetic maker Biotherm for advertising its products as making bodies slimmer based on non-scientific facts.

The authorities have banned the advertisement in catalogs or on Web sites for three months.

The body slimming products are said to "dissolve" body fat, or cellulite, by applying them onto the skin and rubbing it for a certain period of time.

Biotherm said it has "developed a protein mechanism preventing sugar from becoming fat" with its questionable "Shape Laser."

The KFDA said the catchphrases can easily mislead people to assume the product is medicine rather than a simple cosmetic item. "Moreover, we do not authorize fat-burning products as cosmetic goods," it said.

This is not the first time the agency has opposed illusive catchphrases. Between January 2006 and June 2009, a total of 52 cases based on false advertising were ruled against.

France-based Sisley Cosmetic's "Removal of body fat and rugged cellulite;" L'Oreal's "Eight hours of fat burning by focusing on small areas of cellulite:" Christian Dior's "Control cellulite by boosting body fat burning," and other products were fined or banned for similar reasons.

"Many of the products are promoted ahead of the summer season and the administration usually spots the irregularities afterwards, when the products have already sold-out," an insider said.

Therefore, the cosmetic companies choose to take a risk," Yonhap cited an industrial insider as saying.

Source: Korea Times