The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2026
Sea Beauty's 'remove 10 years old tan' before-and-after ad upheld by ASCI
Sea Beauty's Tan Polish would 'remove 10 years old tan' and brighten skin — before/after visuals, no clinical evidence, no response. ASCI upheld.
Sea Beauty · 2026-07-31
What happened
An advertisement for Sea Beauty Tan Polish Face & Body showed before-and-after visuals of skin, promising to 'Remove 10 Years Old Tan' and 'Brighten Skin and Reduces Dark spots'.
ASCI's monitoring unit flagged the claims and asked the advertiser to substantiate them. Sea Beauty submitted no written response and no supporting documents by the due date.
With nothing on file, the Consumer Complaints Council considered the complaint exparte. Neither clinical evidence nor a third-party test report backed the tan-removal or brightening claims, and the before-after visuals were not substantiated.
The Council upheld the complaint: the claims were misleading by exaggeration and liable to cause widespread disappointment, contravening Chapter I clauses 1.1, 1.4 and 1.5 of the ASCI Code. The representation had to be modified or withdrawn.
Why it happened
- 'Remove 10 years old tan' is a dramatic promise sold with before-and-after pictures — and no test report was ever filed
- A brightening claim needs clinical or third-party proof of the actual product, not a photo of skin that 'looks better'
- Ignoring the regulator's deadline turned a contestable claim into an automatic exparte upheld
The lesson
A before-and-after that promises to strip years of tan needs the evidence behind it. Run the claim without a clinical test and the regulator's silence deadline becomes an exparte upheld.
Aftermath
ASCI asked that the misleading representation be modified or withdrawn. Sea Beauty did not contest it, so the case was decided exparte — a self-regulatory loss treated as a default admission when the substantiation deadline is skipped.
Sources
- ASCI Complaint Outcome: Sea Beauty Tan Polish Face & Body (31 Jul 2026)
- ASCI Complaint Outcomes index (31 Jul 2026)
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