Health Ministry to test skincare products

Star: PENANG: The Health Ministry will investigate claims that banned substances have been found in SK-II brand skincare products.
Its parliamentary secretary Datuk Lee Kah Choon said random sampling tests would be conducted following reports in the vernacular dailies that China planned to withdraw the brand’s nine products from the market as they contained metallic substances.
“We will also check on the authentication of the products and whether they are registered with the ministry,” he said after launching a TaiChi-thon fund raising project here yesterday.
“All cosmetic products need to be registered before they are marketed and we have the ‘stop, test and release’ mechanism to make sure the imported products are safe before they are made available on shelves,” he said.
According to the reports, China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine detected chromium and neodymium when it tested a batch of SK-II skincare care products imported from Japan.
The manufacturer of the product Max Factor subsidiary of Procter & Gamble (Japan) had issued a statement that the substances were not added to SK-II skincare products in the production process.
The statement, which was reported on the Internet, said that the company carefully evaluates all SK-II products before releasing it into the market.