17 June 2024, Quezon City. The toxics watchdog group EcoWaste Coalition has detected mercury, a chemical banned in cosmetics, in three imported skin lightening products at extremely high levels that would easily qualify them as mercury waste.
In a follow-up investigation, the group returned to Mandaluyong City last Friday, June 14, to purchase three variants of Pakistan-made Goree Beauty Creams that are sold for P300 each at a pharmacy along F. Martinez St. corner Nueve de Febrero St., Barangay Addition Hills.
The group had earlier monitored the illegal sale of Goree and other unauthorized skin lightening products with mercury in 12 retail stores located in Barangay Addition Hills, Barangay Hulo, Barangay Pag-asa and Barangay Wack-Wack Greenhills East.
Using a handheld X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) device, the EcoWaste Coalition detected mercury above 25,000 parts per million (ppm) in all the three Goree products that were analyzed for mercury.
The Goree Gold 24K Beauty Cream was found to contain 28,560 ppm of mercury, while Goree Day & Night Beauty Cream and Goree Beauty Cream with Lycopene contained 27,340 ppm and 25,770 ppm of mercury, respectively.
“The outrageous amounts of mercury in these contraband cosmetics would qualify them as mercury waste,” said Aileen Lucero, National Coordinator, EcoWaste Coalition. “We got these highly toxic so-called beauty creams from a pharmacy, of all places.”
“Concerted action at the global, national and local levels is required to put a stop to the continued production, trade and use of these poison cosmetics,” she emphasized.
At the fifth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP5) of the Minamata Convention on Mercury in 2023, governments agreed on a 15 ppm concentration of mercury as the threshold for wastes contaminated with mercury. Also, parties agreed that by 2025 no level of mercury will be allowed in cosmetics.
According to the product labels, the said Goree Beauty Creams were manufactured in 2023 in clear non-compliance with the original 2020 phase-out deadline for certain mercury-added products, including skin lighteners with mercury above one ppm under the Minamata Convention on Mercury.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the Philippines, as well as other regulatory bodies in the USA, Europe, Asia and New Zealand, have taken action to protect human health and the environment from being exposed to mercury in Goree Beauty Creams that claim to brighten or lighten the skin.
However, the unlawful importation, distribution and sale of banned Goree Beauty Creams persist even with the multiple public health warnings issued by the FDA from October 2017 up to November 2023.
In 2022, the EcoWaste Coalition through a letter requested the FDA’s regulatory enforcement units (REUs) to join forces with local government units (LGUs) to smash the illicit trade of Goree Beauty Creams and other skin lightening products with mercury content.
The group also urged the FDA to seek the cooperation of shopping malls’ management to ensure that retailers operating within their premises do not offer Goree and other illegal products. It further urged the FDA to establish the legal responsibility of e-commerce sites in relation to the use of their platforms for the online marketing and sale of Goree and other FDA-banned products.
Finally, the group asked the government to lead the “natural is beautiful” advocacy to encourage Filipinos from all walks of life to embrace our inherent skin color and to shun whiteners that may contain mercury and other harmful chemicals.
