Procter & Gamble has pulled the claim "hair-free for two years" — and any similar duration-based wording — from all advertising for its Braun Skin-i Expert IPL hair removal device, closing an investigation by Italy's competition authority, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM).

The case, first reported in February, centred on marketing claims that tied the device's effectiveness to a specific two-year outcome. AGCM scrutinised whether that promise was adequately substantiated for consumers purchasing a device-class hair removal product, a category that sits between cosmetic and medical device positioning and therefore draws heightened regulator attention across EU markets.

The authority has now sanctioned a set of commitments offered by P&G. The first and most concrete: the claims under scrutiny disappear from every form of product advertising. The second goes further than a simple removal. P&G has committed to "use wording that makes no specific reference to the time required to achieve the intended effects or to their duration, removing any promise to deliver results lasting two years".

That wording matters for anyone marketing IPL and energy-based beauty devices in Europe. It does not just ban one claim — it rules out the entire class of time-and-duration promises for this product. Claims teams drafting copy for Braun, and by extension for competitors whose messaging benchmarks against it, will need to build efficacy narratives around outcomes rather than timelines. Expect shorter, hedged formulations: visible reduction, gradual results, individual variation — no months, no years.

The third commitment changes the commercial terms rather than the copy. P&G will extend the device's "100-day money back guarantee" until 31 December 2026. The guarantee was otherwise valid until 30 June 2026. Under the extended terms, consumers can return the hair removal device within 100 days without restrictions and receive a full refund of the purchase price.

For procurement and retail partners, that extension carries a dual weight. It signals confidence in the product on P&G's side — a company does not lengthen an unconditional refund window lightly. But it also functions as a regulatory remedy: the guarantee becomes the substitute assurance for the removed duration claim. Where the advertising once promised two years of hair-free skin, the consumer proposition now rests on a 100-day no-questions return.

The case fits a broader pattern. Device-based cosmetic products — IPL hair removal, LED masks, microcurrent tools — have attracted consistent scrutiny from national authorities in the EU, because their marketing often borrows the outcome language of clinical treatments without the trial data to match. AGCM has form in this space, and its decisions frequently ripple beyond Italy, since global brands tend to harmonise claims across markets rather than run Italian-only copy.

For compliance teams, the practical takeaway is to audit duration claims now. Any statement quantifying how long results last — "six months of smoothness", "one year of coverage", "permanent reduction" — carries risk unless backed by consumer-perception substantiation that matches the specific timeframe claimed. The AGCM settlement language suggests the safest register is one that avoids temporal quantification altogether.

Cosmetics Business has reached out to P&G for comment. The next data points to watch: whether P&G's revised Braun Skin-i Expert copy appears across EU markets in identical form, and whether other national authorities — or the UK's Advertising Standards Authority — pick up the duration-claim question for competing IPL devices before the extended guarantee expires on 31 December 2026.