Drop the Soap

One of the most popular home businesses in the Philippines is selling overpriced and overhyped soaps which allegedly whiten the skin and deep cleanse your pores and generally make you much cleaner than a regular bar of soap. Business is all usually word of mouth or maybe a Facebook post showing your products. Many of these soaps seem to originate in Thailand.

 I was at a lady's house and she had a huge box of soaps on her table.

A rather colourful albeit boring box of soaps. I have seen too many like it to care. But then she brought out something amazing.

What's so amazing about these two products she is selling? The fact they are tainted with mercury and banned by the FDA.

Cosmetic Advisories

FDA Advisory No. 2017-289 || Public Health Warning Against the Use of Unnotified Cosmetic Products Found to Contain Toxic Mercury (Hg) Levels (Batch 2) 

FDA Advisory No. 2017-289  

Public Health Warning Against the Use of Unnotified Cosmetic Products Found to Contain Toxic Mercury (Hg) Levels (Batch 2) 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advises the public against the purchase and use of the following cosmetic products which tested and found to contain toxic mercury (Hg) levels beyond the 1 ppm (parts per million) limit set by the FDA, and as published in the ASEAN Cosmetic Directive (refer to the attached annex for the product particulars/details):

1. RENOW-D NEW FACIAL CREAM FORMULA-ONE

2. GOREE® DAY & NIGHT WHITENING CREAM OIL FREE

3. GOREE® BEAUTY CREAM WITH LYCOPENE WITH SPF 30 AVOCADO & ALOEVERA

http://www.fda.gov.ph/advisories-2/cosmetic-2/472052-fda-advisory-no-2017-289

The soap is not on this list but who would buy it when the same company has mercury in its other products? Plus the cream and the soap go hand in hand. Its a full treatment. 

There have been pictures circulating Facebook showing the harm done from using this soap but this lady told me she has been using the product since September and she has had no side effects. The following is a Facebook testimonial about Goree whitening soap and its harmful side effects.

https://www.facebook.com/kzee.aba/posts/1583747541701250

This warning is ultimately unhelpful and ridiculous because instead of showing us the effects of the product on her nose she posts a picture of some old man's nose!

She also shows how much she really cares about her customers and her friends by starting off like this:

This is the reason why I had to stop selling GOREE CREAM month agoBesides nga officially banned na sya sa FDA, kami sakong bana personally naka experienced sa scary results.

The reason the FDA banned this product is because of its dangerous contents which is the cause of all those scary results. She knew the FDA banned this product and kept using it and was willing to keep using it if there had been no scary results. And you know this is typical.  The lady I saw today selling this soap said the FDA warnings are just black propaganda.

http://www.interaksyon.com/ecowaste-says-retailers-continue-to-sell-mercury-laden-beauty-products-in-manila/

Dizon cited, as an example, Goree Beauty Cream utterly false claim of “no side-effects” as indicated on the label although its mercury content was 25,300 times the permissible limit. On the contrary, using this product may cause serious side-effects, Dizon emphasized. The FDA last October 2017 banned two variants of Goree skin creams from Pakistan due to their mercury content.

25,300 times the permissible limit!  I am very curious how this product is made because such a dangerous level of mercury would mean everyone in the factory is wearing a spacesuit or is dead. Only one way to find out more about the company. Use their webpage.

Guess what?

There is nothing there. And there has likely been nothing there since the page was first registered in 2015 as there are 20 screen captures but no content in the web archive. That is fishy. To register a website and never create any content.  Why?

This soap is bad news and anyone selling it will have their hands dirty from poisoning their customers. They won't be able to wash out the damned spot! It's best to drop this soap altogether.