According to the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law in Japan, cosmetics are stipulated as articles that are applied to the human body for the purpose of cleansing, beautifying, promoting the attractiveness, improving the appearance,or maintaining the skin or hair in a healthy condition without affecting structure or function8,9. Their biological
activity on the human body is required to be gentle and mild. In addition, quasi-drug, one of the cosmetics categories, exists as a unique system of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law in Japan, occupying an intermediate position between drugs and cosmetics. Natural products are indispensable; as a practical matter, various crude drugs or extracts have been used in cosmetics. New components added to cosmetics had needed original examination for the approval system that existed before the flexible regulation of 2001 under the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law in Japan, but the flexible regulation of 2001, which reached the point where each cosmetics ingredient whose safety and stability are guaranteed by the manufacturing enterprise can be combined, became nearer to the regulation of the European–American types.