Are Chinese Cosmetics safe?

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I had been seeing a lot of new Chinese cosmetics in the stores recently. Some seemed targeted at main brands, such as MAC as even the packaging is similar. In light of recent issues with Chinese toys and toothpaste over the past year with regard to product safety I was curious if there were concerns over these Chinese cosmetics.

this is one article I found on a cosmetics industry trade journal web site concerning this issue.

Unsafe Chinese cosmetics still a worry, says EU official

By Katie Bird

11-Jun-2008 - The EU will not compromise on the safety of Chinese exports and will continue to monitor the market even though the country is making efforts to combat the problem, according to an EU official.

EU consumer commissioner Meglena Kuneva has been visiting China this week to discuss consumer product safety and future cooperation, and noted that cosmetics would remain a product group to watch in the future.

EU will still watch the market

The safety of Chinese exports is high on the agenda as China is the origin of over 50 per cent of notified goods, of which a significant proportion are cosmetics products, according to the EU RAPEX alert system.

"The EU cannot and will not compromise on safety. 2007 was marked by a summer of recalls, that has led to a winter of evaluation and a spring and summer of change," said Kuneva in a statement, who will spend the week exploring ways to fully exploit the benefits of the EU-China product safety systems that are currently in place.

Kuneva recognised that China has made significant inroads into the problem of product safety since the issue came to the fore with a number of toxic toys and toothpaste scares last year.

Although emphasising the willingness of the EU to trade with China she said that safety still remained of utmost importance.

"But we need to make one even more stronger statement -- that we will not compromise on safety," she told reporters in Beijing after meeting the head of China's national quality watchdog, Li Changjiang.

"What I can promise you and make as a commitment is that we will continue to watch the market. We are watching and surveying our markets and this is not the end of the game," she said, highlighting toys, electrical goods and cosmetics as particularly worrisome areas.

China cannot do it alone

China has not been inactive on the issue of product safety however many officials have highlighted the need for help and collaboration from the international community in order to achieve these aims.

During the US-China trade talks in December last year the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN) warned that trade agreements on product safety would not be sufficient to stem the tide of toxic goods.

Commentators said the speed of economic growth in China coupled with the absence of established legal structures cast doubt on the government's ability to guarantee the safety of products that leave its multi-layered supply chain.

"Getting adequate regulatory systems in China will take years, especially at the furthest reaches of the many-layers-deep Chinese supply chain," said IEHN director Richard Liroff.

 
I don't know if the situation in the EU is better or worse than in the US with regard to regulatory testing, but it is quite evident even today some of the major manufacturers are not above using ingredients of potential danger to create a product with the desired properties.

I can only imagine that China, that has a pretty shoddy record as of late might do with regard to ingredients. I can only imagine we will be seeing a lot more of these.

and like I said the intent to come close to making a knock off of MAC is remarkably close. I would venture to say if that top plastic lid was replaced with the MAC logo one there is a perfect counterfeit.

 
Even more reason to read the ingredient labels on make-up products.

Thanks for sharing!

 
Originally Posted by Darla_G /img/forum/go_quote.gif and like I said the intent to come close to making a knock off of MAC is remarkably close. I would venture to say if that top plastic lid was replaced with the MAC logo one there is a perfect counterfeit. There are tons of fake MAC products on ebay, with the MAC logo and all.
 
Originally Posted by Ashley /img/forum/go_quote.gif There are tons of fake MAC products on ebay, with the MAC logo and all. yes and i was curious about that if anyone had bought something like that, tried it and saw how it compared to the real thing. just wondering.
 
Depends what you mean by safe. FDA baarely regulates cosmetics. Even drugstore brands have some nasty stuff in them. It doesnt kill you, but it can ruin your skin.

Alsoooo, I don't like to throw a whole market under the bus. Not all chinese manufacturers make bad products, actually most of them are great and we use them every day. I don't think the chinese are doing a worse job than american companies.

 
Originally Posted by coke /img/forum/go_quote.gif Depends what you mean by safe. FDA baarely regulates cosmetics. Even drugstore brands have some nasty stuff in them. It doesnt kill you, but it can ruin your skin.
Alsoooo, I don't like to throw a whole market under the bus. Not all chinese manufacturers make bad products, actually most of them are great and we use them every day. I don't think the chinese are doing a worse job than american companies.

No i didn't want to imply that Chinese cosmetics are bad or dangerous. Its just that some of them are so generic looking and on a lot of them there is NO ingredients list. What i guess i really noticed is that in the past cheap cosmetics were just that, they looked cheap and worked even worse. What i am seeing now is the packaging is first rate, maybe a real expert can tell but for the casual user its pretty, pretty nice. It may even work ok. my question is whether it is safe or not.
 
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thanks for the info

 
Oh, I see.

Well anything without ingredients is not worth the risk.

Another thing I just thought of is that alot of pigments and micas are imported from china, so they probably have better access to their natural ingredients. I'm not completely sure they're all that bad. I'm willing to bet the fake MACs are decent quality (probably like a drugstore quality-ish) They probably just add talc to "water it down".

 
Originally Posted by coke /img/forum/go_quote.gif Oh, I see.
Well anything without ingredients is not worth the risk.

Another thing I just thought of is that alot of pigments and micas are imported from china, so they probably have better access to their natural ingredients. I'm not completely sure they're all that bad. I'm willing to bet the fake MACs are decent quality (probably like a drugstore quality-ish) They probably just add talc to "water it down".

Hmmm interesting point.
 
What an interesting article. Like coke said, if i can't read the ingredients i probably wouldn't purchase it in the first place.

 

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