South Korea: MFDS Publishes Guidelines on Alternative Methods to Cosmetics Testing on Animals

In October 2022, South Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) has published "Guidelines for Alternative Test Methods for Animals such as Cosmetics" to evaluate the phototoxicity and skin sensitization of cosmetics without using experimental animals such as rodents. The guidelines published are titled as 'Phototoxicity Test Method Using Human Skin Model' and 'Chemical Skin Sensitization Test'. 'Phototoxicity test method using human skin model' is a test to confirm the phototoxicity potential of the test substance by using an artificial 3D human skin model that has biochemically and morphological characteristics similar to human skin. 'Chemical skin sensitization test' is a test to confirm the skin sensitization of the test substance by checking the degree of color development due to a chemical reaction with an artificial peptide containing cysteine.