As of 2020, the global whitening market is about $8 billion, and it is expected to reach $118 by 2026, of which whitening creams dominate the market. In this booming and thriving industry, there are also some industry chaos.
Recently, the Zero Mercury Working Group (ZMWG) published a study in which they purchased and tested 271 whitening products from more than 40 e-commerce sites in 17 countries and found that 129 products in 16 of them exceeded mercury levels, which were sold on online platforms such as eBay, Alibaba and Amazon.
The Zero Mercury Working Group (ZMWG) is an international coalition established in 2005 by the European Environment Association and the Mercury Policy Project and is composed of more than 110 non-governmental organizations from 55 countries concerned with public environmental and health interests. Therefore, the authenticity of this test can be said to be very high.
Mercury, as a heavy metal, is known to be highly toxic, and most countries limit the amount of mercury used in cosmetics. In 2013, the Minamata Convention on Mercury set an international limit of 1 mg/kg or 1 ppm in cosmetics (except eye cosmetics), which came into force in 2021. Global treaties also prohibit the manufacture, import and export of cosmetics with mercury content in excess of 1 ppm.
But ZMWG found that 47% (129/271) of the skin whitening products tested had mercury levels above allowable levels, with many of them containing mercury in excess of 10,000 ppm and as high as 65,000 ppm, tens of thousands of times the safety standard.
Why is the mercury content in skin whitening products so high? This is because mercury blocks the production of melanin in the skin, not only to whiten the skin, but also to remove spots, freckles, blemishes and wrinkles.
Cosmetics containing large amounts of mercury are absorbed through the skin, causing rashes and allergies, and serious kidney damage and nerve disorders.
Most mercury-defying cosmetics are not produced by big brands in the United States or Europe, but are found in brands in Pakistan, Mexico, China and Thailand, some of which are popular locally, and Face Creams under Jiaoli in China are "blacklisted".
It is worth noting that this is not the first investigation by the Zero Mercury Working Group (ZMWG), which has been investigated twice before, but those e-commerce platforms have only removed products from the outlet of public opinion, and these toxic and harmful cosmetics have been listed after the wind has passed, and this test still found that many previous companies are still selling products that exceed the mercury standard.
In addition to adding mercury to whitening products, some of them also add steroids, hydroquinone and other harmful ingredients, long-term use of steroids will cause rashes, pustules and other problems, and hydroquinone is more harmful, the FDA identified it as a potential carcinogen, may cause dermatitis, nerve problems.
When the time school mentioned the method of whitening and anti-aging before, it mentioned freckle removal and whitening skin care products, and at that time said that it was not recommended for everyone to use, because these products not only have limited effect, but also have a high probability of containing heavy metals such as lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium and so on. We have also given an example, which can be seen in the figure below. The whitening industry really needs to be well rectified.
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