Do bath & body gifts have to follow laws?

If I send a gift of my hand made anhydrous body butter from the United States to a stranger (someone helped me out and I want to thank them) in the United Kingdom, am I expected to/liable for following U.K. labeling/testing/selling guidelines?

Are you selling? If not, then you have your answer.

Hmm, well in the UK we are told that we cannot even gift our cosmetic products to people unless we jump through the same hoops as someone selling them (safety testing / assessments, insurance etc) but as you are not making the product in the UK then I don't think the law applies. I could be wrong of course but I'm assuming that as you don't reside here, you can't be expected to abide to our rules, iykwim

If the laws would apply to soap made IN the UK, then it applies to imported stuff, just as if it was being sold.

ETA, but that is a big IF - I don't see how giving Granny a bar of soap would be breaching the laws, in the same way that if you gave her a pie you wouldn't have to follow the same guidelines as a catering firm.

The Efficacious Gentleman said:

If the laws would apply to soap made IN the UK, then it applies to imported stuff, just as if it was being sold.

ETA, but that is a big IF - I don't see how giving Granny a bar of soap would be breaching the laws, in the same way that if you gave her a pie you wouldn't have to follow the same guidelines as a catering firm.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but this isn't a bar of soap to granny, you know? I want to give this to a total stranger... It's some guy (I think it's a guy...) from ebay who was kind enough to sell me something for a whole lot less than he could have gotten for it if he'd sold it openly in an auction. I just want to show my gratitude, but not at the expense of opening myself up to enormous liability.

Which begs the question... Is there really any liability with me a country away?

PuddinAndPeanuts said:

Yeah, but this isn't a bar of soap to granny, you know? I want to give this to a total stranger... It's some guy (I think it's a guy...) from ebay who was kind enough to sell me something for a whole lot less than he could have gotten for it if he'd sold it openly in an auction. I just want to show my gratitude, but not at the expense of opening myself up to enormous liability.

Which begs the question... Is there really any liability with me a country away?

Click to expand...

This is really a 'how lucky do you feel' question. If you are asking if you 'could' be held liable the answer is yes. However, what are the chances that this person will be harmed by your soap? If he is harmed, what are the chances that he would want to start a litigation with someone an ocean away? So you need to weigh it out. If it were me I would send it with a thank you note and I certainly wouldn't be losing sleep over it.

Also, if he did have a reaction with it, its a gift, so he probably would feel a bit mean taking any action over it, so I think the risks are pretty slim. I am assuming however that you are experienced in this product (do you already sell?) so you know what you are doing and it is unlikely to have an adverse reaction anyway. But as I say, I just don't think it matters because as you aren't a resident here the rules do not apply to you. We have access to trade from the whole world in the UK via the internet. People are buying stuff from all over not just cosmetics but harmful drugs etc that are banned in this country but what can they do, the internet is a difficult thing to police. So in the greater scheme of things, someone (with experience and knowledge) sending a gift of body butter as a show of gratitude to someone else, surely isn't worth worrying about

Dorymae said:

This is really a 'how lucky do you feel' question. If you are asking if you 'could' be held liable the answer is yes. However, what are the chances that this person will be harmed by your soap? If he is harmed, what are the chances that he would want to start a litigation with someone an ocean away? So you need to weigh it out. If it were me I would send it with a thank you note and I certainly wouldn't be losing sleep over it.

Click to expand...

If he's English, he'll be likely to apologies rather tha sue!

squeakycleanuk said:

................But as I say, I just don't think it matters because as you aren't a resident here the rules do not apply to you. We have access to trade from the whole world in the UK via the internet. People are buying stuff from all over not just cosmetics but harmful drugs etc that are banned in this country but what can they do, the internet is a difficult thing to police.....................

Click to expand...

No, no - a million times NO!

If you (in the UK) buy something from abroad, YOU are importing it and YOU need to make sure that it conforms to the laws - or not, if you don't want to and would rather risk it. But it is not the job of the person selling it as YOU are the one importing it.

In this case PandP is the one importing it, so it falls to PandP to make sure that all is well, based on the assertion from Squeaky that the laws apply to gifts.

As has been said, it is unlikely to a)be picked up b) cause any harm or c) make a difference in the grand scheme, but that does NOT mean that people can flood the UK market with things that don't meet the laws of the land just because they don't live in the UK.

Thanks guys! I appreciate the input. This is only an anhydrous body butter- not lotion or soap, so the only bad thing that I can even vaguely conceive of happening is if he's allergic to one of the ingredients (which are all clearly listed on the label). I think I'll go ahead and send it with a thank you note that reiterates the ingredients and a warning that he shouldn't use it if he's allergic to any of them. This guy saved me about $100, and its for a device I needed for work. Kindness should be rewarded, you know? It's not like I think some random guy is going to particularly go bananas about receiving moisturizer- but at least he'll know I'm truly appreciative of his thoughtfulness.