No One Knows How Many of the World’s Skin-Lightening Creams Are Tainted With Mercury
Tests keep turning up the toxic element, even in products the manufacturers claim are safe.
Images from advertisements for skin-lightening products.
Photo Illustration by 731. Photographs: AP Photo. Getty Images (2). Alamy
The mercury hunters of Manila were on a mission. Having paid an undercover visit to a neighborhood market, they returned to their office in an apartment block on the city’s outskirts to assess the haul of skin-lightening creams.
At a table in the headquarters of the EcoWaste Coalition, chemical safety campaigner Thony Dizon readied his investigative tool: an X-ray fluorescence analyzer, or XRF. He unlocked the ray gun’s hard-shell case, lifted the device, and aimed it into a small white jar containing an avocado-colored cream. The XRF took a few seconds to flash its red light, blast its rays, and then measure the photons emitted back by the contents. Blink, blink, blink … “FAIL,” the device read.