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Warning for make-up users after germ find
Mimi Lau
Thursday, August 16, 2007
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Two brands of mascara - a cosmetic women use to darken or define their eyelashes - have been found to contain excessive amounts of bacteria.
According to the Consumer Council, tests carried out on 40 types of mascaras widely available on the market revealed that two of them - Rainbow Volume and Curling Mascara and Cosline Croan Eyelash Mascara - were tainted with bacteria 150 times above the permitted level. The two products, manufactured in South Korea, cost HK$19 and HK$22, respectively.
They were each found to contain a total bacterial count of 78,000 CFU (colony forming unit) per gram. This amount is 150 times over the permitted limit, according to the mainland's hygiene standards for cosmetics.
Counts of 530 CFU/g and 4,100 CFU/g of molds and yeast were also found in Rainbow and Cosline Croan mascaras, respectively.
The council said that, despite the bacteria find, all the cosmetics samples passed the heavy metals test.
Council spokesman Ambrose Ho Pui-him warned yesterday that the use of unhygienic mascaras may greatly increase the risk of eye infection or inflammation.
Excessive microbial content in cosmetics may include poor hygiene standards adopted during the production process, damaged packages, and insufficient or failure of preservatives in the products, he said.
Eric Cheung Chun-wai, a sales manager with Hong Kong New Town Cosmetics Trading - one of Rainbow mascara's local distributors - said they have not been selling the cosmetic for several months as it might not be profitable.
Lung Shing Dispensary in Tsim Sha Tsui - a distributor for Cosline Croan Eyelash Mascara - refused to say if they are still selling the product.
Consumer Council chief executive Connie Lau Yin-hing said the lack of information on the labels of cosmetics, such as the expiry date, have compromised consumers' rights.
"We know that in China there's legislation to ensure labels contain useful dates on cosmetics. Some tourists have complained to us that Hong Kong lags behind the mainland in this respect. Sometimes, they feel cheated because they don't know the culture difference [between Hong Kong and the mainland]," Lau said.
Most of the complaints were about skin-care products and lipsticks.
Lau said consumers in Hong Kong should not lose out on such vital product information, and Hong Kong needs to introduce labeling legislation on cosmetics as soon as possible.
According to ophthalmologists, consumers who apply make-up on a daily basis should avoid waterproof, glitter, lengthening and volumizing mascara as small particles may get into their eyes easily and increase the risk of infection, especially for those wearing contact lens.
The council, meanwhile, has warned of deceptive advertisements promising "you can grow as tall as you want" without undergoing surgery or having injections.
This follows a string of complaints from consumers who claimed they had been misled by these promotions in magazines placed by so-called beauty centers.
According to the council, it received six such complaints in 2005, five last year and one this year.
The advertisers claim to use physiotherapy or medical therapy along with drugs and electrotherapeutic and mechanical agents in their "grow taller" treatment, saying they can help those who are naturally born short and who have not grown out their potential height.
Some have even gone as far as claiming their beauty centers are equipped with the most advanced technology to "reactivate the soft tissues between the bones so as to achieve a growth effect of up to one to five inches [2.5-12.5 centimeters]."
One person claimed to have paid a total of HK$25,000 to a center in 2005, but had not grown any taller.
