Banned mercury skin creams still sold on Amazon, Temu, TikTok Shop

More than 20 banned skin-bleaching products containing mercury remain available for purchase on third-party marketplaces operated by Amazon Amazon.com, Inc. ↗ 2.13%, Temu, and TikTok Shop across multiple countries, according to an exclusive Reuters investigation published on Wednesday. The findings come more than a decade after the 2013 Minamata Convention banned the manufacture, import, and sale of mercury-containing products across more than 150 signatory nations.reuters

Sellers Evade Detection With New Tactics

Reuters reporters in London and New York purchased several products flagged by regulators, including Pakistani-made Parley Beauty Creams on Temu and TikTok Shop, Mexican-made bleaching creams on TikTok Shop, and Filipino-made bleaching soaps on Amazon. None of the products listed mercury as an ingredient, though all appeared on banned product lists. Reuters said it could not independently confirm the presence of the toxin.tribune

Sellers have grown more adept at circumventing platform rules. Some products removed from websites were re-listed under misleading names or by different sellers shortly after takedowns. In one case, an Amazon third-party seller in India listed "Beauty Brightening Cream" instead of "Chandni" cream — a product flagged by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — and blurred out the product's actual name in the accompanying image.tbsnews+1

"Mercury gives you lightening effects within days, far faster than legal agents like kojic acid or arbutin," said Winston Morgan, professor of toxicology at the University of East London. "Mercury is also relatively cheap, easy to formulate into creams, and stable."tbsnews

Platforms Acknowledge the Problem

All three companies told Reuters they prohibit sales of these products and were taking steps to remove them and act against violating sellers. Yet as of September 1, most of the products remained listed. Amazon said it has "proactive controls in place," including seller verification and mandatory compliance documentation, and that it was suspending "evasive sellers". TikTok said it was removing products that violate its rules barring items that "aim to bleach, whiten, lighten, or reduce overall melanin in the skin".tribune+1

Rachel Doughty, an attorney at Greenfire Law who fought Amazon for a decade over these products, pointed to deeper structural issues. "Their position for a long time was that they were just a platform and they weren't responsible for what third-party sellers posted on their websites," she told Reuters.tbsnews

Regulators Signal Renewed Focus

The FDA, which in May published a list of mercury-containing skin-lightening creams warning consumers against buying them, told Reuters that "removing them from the market remains one of the agency's top priorities". French authorities issued a recall notice on August 28 for a Parley Goldie cream that Reuters had found available earlier that month, though the product was still listed on Amazon's Belgian website days later.fda+2

The World Health Organization, which says there is no known safe exposure level for mercury, acknowledged that online and cross-border e-commerce platforms "can make regulatory oversight and enforcement more challenging".tribune