Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating General Shopkeeper gets jail for selling illegal skin lightening products

  • OldPerry

    Member
    August 21, 2018 at 6:04 pm

    17% hydroquinone! yikes!!

  • Bill_Toge

    Member
    August 21, 2018 at 7:52 pm
    skin lightening creams with illegal ingredients are the most common reason for cosmetics to appear on RAPEX reports - and Trading Standards have been known to bring the hammer down on repeat offenders
    another frequent cause for prosecution is imported ‘henna’ with synthetic dyes which have been banned in Europe for 20+ years, and/or non-permitted forms of peroxide (most commonly barium peroxide)
    also: full credit to the Guardian for sticking to the facts and not turning that article into an excercise in political hand-wringing
  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    August 22, 2018 at 9:14 pm

    @Perry I read so much about hydroquinone and information is so controdictory! If remember correctly, you were comparing skin lighteners such as kojic acid and alpha-arbutin with it and said that nothing is as effective as hydroquinone. Is it the concentration that makes products dangerous?

  • Sibech

    Member
    August 22, 2018 at 9:24 pm

    @ngarayeva001 as paracelsus said and I paraphrase, everything is a poison, there is nothing that is not a poison, only the dose makes the poison.
    so basically yes, the toxicity of a compound is generally dose dependent, but not necessarily linearly so. 

    As for hydroquinone, It is carcinogenic (cat 2 according to the european CLP legislation)
    https://www.cir-safety.org/sites/default/files/Hydroq_122014_FAR%20.pdf

  • Bill_Toge

    Member
    August 22, 2018 at 10:15 pm

    and in Europe it’s been banned from cosmetics since 2001, which means its usage has been restricted to medicines, which are subject to much more rigorous safety testing

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