By Inna Kowalsky, founder of Cosmetics China Agency.
The facts
On February 2, 2026, Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce learning center published a revision banning the sharing of certain products and services, effective February 10, according to medical aesthetics trade outlet Medbelove. The rule, known as “three products, one device” (三品一械), now bans creators from sharing or promoting OTC drugs, health supplements, medical devices, or medical and health services, in livestreams, in notes, in captions, or in comments. Detection runs on “AI multimodal recognition plus human review,” with the platform claiming 92% accuracy on flagged aesthetic-medicine content.
This platform rule did not appear out of nowhere. It applies the national Live E-Commerce Supervision Measures, effective February 1, 2026, which reclassify a creator’s product recommendation as commercial advertising under the Advertising Law. And the Advertising Law bars exactly these four categories, medical drugs, health foods, special medical purpose formula foods, and medical devices, from using an endorser for recommendation or testimonial.
What this actually means
The confusion to avoid: this rule does not say “you cannot sell these products on Xiaohongshu.” It says “you cannot have someone recommend them as if giving a personal endorsement.” A neutral product listing in a shop remains fine. A video where a creator says “I use this device and it works” no longer is.
What is genuinely new is not the ban itself, the Advertising Law has existed for years. What changed is that Xiaohongshu now enforces it at the scale of creator-generated content, with an automated system running continuously instead of periodic spot checks. Before, enforcement of this law relied on occasional review. Now a combined AI and human system runs around the clock.
Mechanically, this closes a channel many supplement and beauty-device brands used without thinking twice: the KOC who tests a “mass market” product that, on closer inspection, falls into one of the four regulated categories. A cream containing an active ingredient classified as a medical device, or a supplement marketed as “wellness” but registered under a special food category, both need their regulatory classification checked before continuing a seeding strategy that worked fine until now.
The useful precedent is the wave of medical-aesthetics enforcement launched by 14 Chinese government departments in June 2026, running through March 2027 with a five-year retroactive audit. The February 10 rule on Xiaohongshu is not an isolated event, it fits inside a year where medical and medicalized beauty are under scrutiny on every front, platform and government at once.
What stays unclear: the exact line between a standard cosmetic and a product that tips into “medical device” or “supplement” under Chinese regulatory terms is not always obvious for a foreign brand, and the classification can differ from the brand’s home market.
What this changes for your brand
Exposure varies a lot by category. A standard makeup brand is not directly affected by this specific rule. A supplement brand, a home-use beauty device brand, or a skincare line making a therapeutic claim, is directly in scope, and the risk hits both the brand and the creators it pays.
The window closed on February 10, it is not still closing. Doing nothing today means continuing a content strategy that exposes both the partner creator’s account and, indirectly, the brand that paid for that now non-compliant content.
One of our home-beauty-device clients, a facial radiofrequency tool, had a dozen KOCs presenting before-and-after results with phrasing like “this reduced my fine lines in three weeks.” That content sits squarely in the banned category. The brand shifted its strategy toward content showing product use without a measurable outcome claim, and toward creators talking about their routine without presenting the device as recommended for a specific result. Content volume dropped a bit, the risk of a frozen account mid-campaign disappeared.
How to adjust your content strategy
The first step is regulatory, not marketing: get Chinese counsel to confirm the exact classification of every affected product, standard cosmetic, medical device, supplement, or health service. That classification is not always the one a Western marketer expects based on their home market’s categories.
Once classification is confirmed, creator content needs to change in nature for the affected products. On livestreaming specifically, that means replacing the result testimonial with a texture demonstration, an application walkthrough, or a sensory experience, never a promise of measurable effect over time. For devices, show the gesture, not the outcome.
Our beauty marketing team reviews creator briefs against exactly this line before every campaign, category by category, rather than applying one generic brief across a whole range.
The open question
Some supplement and device brands will try vaguer phrasing to get around the rule, “some users report.” Others cut any result mention entirely, even if it costs conversion power. On the products of yours that sit in this grey zone, how are you handling it? Tell us in the comments, or reach out directly.
Inna Kowalsky is the founder and Chief Beauty Officer of Cosmetics China Agency, an independent, beauty-only agency in Shanghai. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/innakochanzhi.
Cosmetics China Agency and product compliance on Xiaohongshu
At Cosmetics China Agency, every beauty creator brief goes through a product classification check before it gets approved, not after the first note goes live. This isn’t a box we tick to cover ourselves, it has become a condition for the creator account we’re paying for to survive. Want a Free Social Media Audit of your current creator content on this point?
