Whitening products are everywhere in the Philippines. But one woman who used whitening cream on her underarms learned that she shouldn’t just trust every seller out there.
In a Facebook post by beauty blogger Ranz Harley yesterday, he said his sister allegedly suffered burns and rashes under her arms after using Goree, a whitening product she bought from an online seller.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned Goree in October for its high mercury levels.
According to a report in the Manila Times, the EcoWaste coalition had already issued a warning to online retailers to stop selling this product in October.
“(These) products have not gone through the verification process of the agency and have not been issued the proper authorization in the form of acknowledged cosmetic notifications,” the advisory said.
“We request the management of Lazada, OLX and other online shopping platforms not to allow their sites to be used for the unlawful sale of consumer products such as cosmetics that have not passed the quality and safety verification by the authorities,” Thony Dizon, Chemical Safety Campaigner, EcoWaste Coalition, said in the release.
Harley is a beauty blogger with hundreds of videos online, most of which are beauty product reviews.
Harley said in his Facebook post, which now has over 37,000 shares, that he thought the itching was normal and that his sister’s rash would go away. But it only got worse.
Harley had tried the product himself in January but it was only after his sister used the Goree product that he realized it was not supposed to be sold online.
Whitening products are popular in the Philippines where white skin is considered the beauty standard.
One trend that has been on the rise lately is the glutathione drip, where clients receive whitening substances through an IV.
READ: Life on the drip: Tapping into a country’s color obsession
Coconuts Manila reached out to Harley for comment but has not received a response as of posting time.
He told DZMM in an interview yesterday that they don’t plan on suing the company that produces the product, but warned people to be careful with the whitening creams they use.
“I hope this will be a lesson to online sellers that they can get sued if this happens to other people,” he said. “They should be aware that the products they are selling are safe and won’t harm their customers.”
