MARKET SURVEY OF ILLEGAL LIGHTENING COSMETICS ON THE BELGIUM MARKET

During the last years, the EU market is flooded by illegal cosmetics via the Internet and a so-called "black market". Among these, skin-lightening products represent an important group. They contain, according to the current European cosmetic legislation (Directive 76/768/EEC), a number of illegal active substances including hydroquinone, tretinoin and corticosteroids [1]. These may provoke as well local as systemic toxic effects, being the reason for their banning from the EU market [2]. To survey this market a fast UHPLC-TOF screening method capable of detecting illegal and legal lightening actives in the wide variety of existing lightening cosmetic formulations was used. All positive samples were quantified with UHPLC-DAD. Both methods are able to detect the major illegal (hydroquinone, tretinoin and six dermatologic active corticosteroids) and legal whitening agents, the latter having restrictions with aspect to concentration and application (kojic acid, arbutin, nicotinamide and salicylic acid). The methods were used to perform a market survey consisting out of 161 samples taken by inspectors at so called ethnic-cosmetic shops and customs of air- and seaports. The most remarkable result is the detection of the very potent corticosteroid, clobetasol propionate in 65 samples representing about 44% of the total sample set. The illegal lightening agent tretinoin and hydroquinone were detected 18 and 17 times respectively. With 8 samples containing more than 4% hydroquinone with two of these going as high as 12 and 16%.
It should be clear that despite the EU ban, products containing these ingredients can still be bought through illegal circuits. Knowing that formulations usually are composed of combinations of the above mentioned substances together with legal ingredients and penetration enhancers, their potential risk for human health cannot be excluded, in particular after repeated and long-term exposure. An overview of the number of samples positive for an illegal lightening agent is shown in figure 1.