The word the creator says on camera decides what the product is. In the United States a moisturizer that "hydrates" is a cosmetic; the same moisturizer that "treats eczema" is a drug, with a drug's approval requirements, and the sentence that moved it from one category to the other can be spoken in a fifteen-second video by a creator who was never told the difference. That is the whole of what a beauty brand needs to understand before it briefs its first creator here, and it is the reason the American beauty brief reads like a list of words.
The general craft of beauty UGC, the application shot, the casting of varied skin, the before-and-after that has limits, is covered in the guide to UGC for beauty brands. This guide is about the American layer on top of it: the line the Food and Drug Administration draws between cosmetics and drugs, the Federal Trade Commission's rules on what a claim in an ad has to be able to prove, and how a brand writes a brief that keeps a creator's enthusiasm on the right side of both.
Cosmetic or drug: the claim decides
What the law calls a cosmetic
The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act defines cosmetics as articles intended to be applied to the human body "for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness, or altering the appearance", and the FDA's own list of examples is the beauty shelf: moisturizers, perfumes, lipsticks, nail polish, makeup, shampoos, hair color, deodorants. A cosmetic does not need FDA approval before it is sold; color additives are the exception the FDA names. A creator who says a serum "makes my skin look brighter" or a lipstick "lasts through lunch" is describing a cosmetic doing what cosmetics do.
What turns it into a drug
The same Act defines drugs, in part, by intended use: articles "intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease", and articles "intended to affect the structure or any function of the body". Whether a product is a cosmetic or a drug is determined by its intended use, and the FDA states that intended use may be established by claims made "on the product labeling, in advertising, on the Internet, or in other promotional materials". A creator's video is promotional material. A moisturizer marketed as if it treats a skin disease has a drug's intended use whatever its formula, and the FDA notes that firms sometimes violate the law precisely by marketing a cosmetic with a drug claim.
Both at once, and the word that means nothing
Some products are both, and the FDA lists them: an antidandruff shampoo (cleansing is cosmetic, treating dandruff is a drug use), a toothpaste with fluoride, a deodorant that is also an antiperspirant, a moisturizer or makeup marketed with sun protection. Acne treatments and sunscreens are among the nonprescription drug categories the FDA regulates through over-the-counter monographs. And "cosmeceutical", a word the industry uses freely, has no meaning under the law: a product is a cosmetic, a drug, both, or soap, and the marketing term does not create a fifth category.
The words in the brief
| What the creator says | What it is, in the FDA's or the FTC's terms | What the brief should do |
|---|---|---|
| "Hydrates", "smooths the look of", "feels lighter", "smells like" | Cosmetic language: beautifying, altering the appearance | Encourage it; this is the vocabulary of the category |
| "Treats acne", "heals eczema", "cures dandruff", "prevents sun damage" | Drug claims: treating a condition, or sun protection, which the FDA lists as a drug use | Forbid it for any product not sold as a drug; supply the exact sunscreen or acne wording for products that are |
| "Boosts collagen", "regenerates cells", "repairs the skin barrier" | Claims about affecting the structure or function of the body | Treat as drug territory; remove or replace with appearance language |
| "Clinically proven", "dermatologist recommended" | Claims that require substantiation the brand must hold | Allow only with the evidence in hand, in the words the evidence supports |
The table is the practical form of the FDA's rule and of the FTC's. The FTC's health products guidance states that claims about the health benefits or safety of health-related products require substantiation in the form of "competent and reliable scientific evidence", and that "advertising" for its purposes includes social media and the whole range of marketing techniques, whereas a creator's improvised sentence on camera is, to the creator, just talking. Compared with a print ad the brand wrote itself, a creator video is harder to control and no less the brand's responsibility: the guidance is explicit that advertisers are liable for the misleading use of endorsements in social media as elsewhere.
Before and after, and the results a viewer can expect
Beauty content lives on the before-and-after, and American law does not forbid it. What the FTC's guidance forbids is the misleading version: a testimonial showing results more dramatic than users can generally expect is likely to be deceptive, and attempts to disclaim dramatic results with statements like "Results not typical" do not cure the deception. Such testimonials should be accompanied by a clear and conspicuous disclosure of the results a typical consumer can actually expect. For a beauty brand that means two things in the brief: the creator shows their own real result, filmed honestly, and the brand knows what a typical result is before it lets the video run. A creator with unusually responsive skin is a wonderful video and a compliance problem, and the guide to Boston describes what a reviewer who reads scripts as claims does with it.
The disclosure, which does not change with the category
Every paid or gifted beauty post carries the same obligation as any other: the FTC's influencer guidance asks for a clear disclosure of the material connection, payment, free product or a business relationship, placed with the endorsement and hard to miss. For a video, the same guidance is that the disclosure goes in the video itself, not only in the description, and is noticed more when it is both said and shown. Free product is a material connection whether or not a post was asked for: the guidance says to disclose it even when the brand never asked for a mention. The beauty specificity is volume: when gifting is how the relationship starts, the disclosure has to be there on the twentieth unboxing as it was on the first. The guide to product seeding versus paid UGC draws the commercial line; the disclosure line does not move.
Briefing an American beauty creator
- Send the allowed vocabulary and the forbidden vocabulary as two short lists, with the reason in one sentence: "we sell a cosmetic, so we do not treat, heal, cure or prevent anything on camera".
- Supply the exact wording for any drug-status product in the range, sunscreen and acne products first, and ask the creator to read it rather than paraphrase it.
- Ask for the creator's real result and the honest timeline, and decide before the shoot whether a typical-results disclosure is needed on the video.
- Put the disclosure wording in the brief, and check it on every deliverable, gifted or paid.
- Have the person who knows the difference between a cosmetic and a drug watch the video before it runs, because the FDA reads promotional material and a video is promotional material.
Sources
- FDA, Is It a Cosmetic, a Drug, or Both? (Or Is It Soap?)
- Federal Trade Commission, Health Products Compliance Guidance
- Federal Trade Commission, Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers
Checked on 20 September 2026. This guide is not legal advice. Where this guide and the official source disagree, the official source prevails.
