Warning Out on Mercury-Laced Beauty Cream that Promises to Make Users Gorgeous

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Quezon City.  The EcoWaste Coalition again warned consumers from buying and using skin lightening products containing toxic mercury following a European Union’s alert against Pakistan-made Golden Pearl Beauty Cream (yellow box).

According to the product insert, Golden Pearl Beauty Cream, a product banned in the Philippines and other countries for containing mercury, “is the only cream that clears pimples, wrinkles, marks, hives, even shadows under the eyes and turns your skin white… makes you so gorgeous that you won’t believe (it).”

As published last Friday on Safety Gate, the EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products, the government of Sweden issued an updated alert against the said product containing 16.8 g/Kg of mercury (equivalent to 16,800 parts per million).

“Mercury accumulates in the body and can damage the kidneys, brain and nervous system,” the alert warned.  “Additionally, it may affect reproduction and the unborn child.”

This is not the first time that governmental authorities flagged Golden Pearl Beauty Cream (yellow box) for presenting serious chemical risks due to its mercury content.

For example,  Fiji in 2023 banned mercury-containing Golden Pearl Beauty Cream following New Zealand’s ban in 2021. Bangladesh prohibited it in 2020 and again in 2022, Norway and the USA in 2019, Philippines in 2014, and UK in 2013.

Specifically, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned Golden Pearl Beauty Cream in 2014 along with six other mercury-laden skin lightening products reported to the agency by the EcoWaste Coalition.

The FDA issued a public health warning after confirmatory tests found the reported products positive for “violative levels of mercury.”

Golden Pearl Beauty Cream is also listed in BPOM’s database of cosmetics containing hazardous ingredients, particularly mercury (BPOM is FDA’s counterpart agency in Indonesia).

Also, between 2021-2024, the governments of Austria, UK and the Philippines banned the newly repackaged Golden Pearl Beauty Cream (gold and red), which is also tainted with mercury.

Despite the multi-country bans, Golden Pearl Beauty Cream, especially the one in gold and red packaging, remains available in some online and physical stores.

A highly toxic chemical, mercury is known to have toxic effects on the skin and the digestive, immune, nervous, renal, and respiratory systems, and can also affect the development of unborn babies. Renal failure may occur in severe cases.

Signs and symptoms of mercury exposure include changes in hearing, vision or taste, difficulty concentrating, depression, insomnia, irritability, memory deterioration, shyness, tingling in feet, hands or around the mouth, and tremors.

The World Health Organization (WHO) considers mercury among the 10 chemicals or groups of chemicals of major public health concern.  “To protect the public health from negative health effects of mercury in skin lightening products, actions are needed that engage different parts of society,” the WHO said.

To address this global health issue, the WHO, among other steps, recommends establishing or improving legislation, implementing compliance and enforcement strategies, strengthening laboratory capacity, conducting advocacy campaigns, and increasing awareness of health risks associated with skin lightening products, including those containing mercury.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury, which the Philippines ratified in 2020, bans the manufacture, import and export of mercury-added skin lightening products.

Aside from tracking mercury-containing skin whiteners being sold in the market and raising consumer awareness about the hazards they pose to health and the environment, the EcoWaste Coalition also advocates for acceptance of a person’s natural skin color, stressing there is beauty in all skin tones and in being respectful, inclusive and non-discriminatory.