Beauty s-care

Sumi Akhter was on the lookout for a skin lightening cream as she wanted to appear fairer at her sister's wedding just two weeks away. She found her desired product at a cosmetics shop in the capital's Hossainia Market. The Pakistan-made cream promised lighter skin tone in seven days.

The college student had no idea that the excessive amount of mercury usually found in such products can not only damage skin permanently but also cause fatal diseases. A recent study found that the amount of mercury in 14 out of the 32 skin lightening cream samples collected from the market were 90 to 16,000 times higher than the 1ppm (parts per million) limit set by the 2013 Minamata Convention on Mercury.

Bangladesh is a signatory to the convention, which aims to protect human health and environment from mercury emissions and ban its use above 1ppm in products after 2020. The convention ratified by 101 of 128 signatory countries has not been ratified by Bangladesh.  The Zero Mercury Working Group (ZMWG), a coalition of NGOs from over 50 countries, revealed the findings on November 15 last year. Of the 14 creams with higher mercury, six were manufactured in Pakistan, three in Taiwan, one in China and one in Bangladesh. The report does not mention the origin of the three other products.

For More: https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/news/beauty-s-care-1683580

Posted by admin on Jan 7 2019. Filed under No Mercury. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry