FDA warns Avon to smooth out claims on skin care products

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned beauty products company Avon Products Inc to stop advertising its Anew range of skin care products using language that makes them sound like drugs.

In September, the regulator had warned L'Oreal SA for making similar claims.

The FDA reviewed the company's website in August, and objected to claims made about the products Anew Clinical Advanced Wrinkle Corrector, Anew Reversalist Night Renewal Cream, Anew Reversalist Renewal Serum, Anew Clinical Thermafirm Face Lifting Cream, and Solutions Liquid Bra Toning Gel.

The regulator warned Avon in a letter dated October 5 that the claims on the company's website implied those products were intended to affect the structure or function of the human body, which would classify them as drugs.

The letter was posted on the FDA's website on Tuesday.

Avon was not immediately available for comment outside of U.S. business hours.

Earlier this month, Avon said Sheri McCoy would take over as chief executive in December, in a bid to turn around the world's largest direct seller of cosmetics, whose sales have slid in key markets and which is trying to settle a U.S. bribery probe.

(Reporting by Krithika Krishnamurthy in Bangalore; Editing by Chris Gallagher)