Fake Cosmetics - Arsenic And Urine Found In Cosmetics
Story courtesey of Sky News Monday 18th May 2015
Rat droppings, human urine and arsenic have been found in fake beauty products sold in Britain, according to police.
Officers with the City of London Police have launched a campaign to highlight the dangers of counterfeit goods being sold across the UK.
The "Wake Up - don't fake up!" campaign aims to educate consumers about the sale of fake beauty products - an industry worth an estimated £90m each year.
Police say the growing popularity of online shopping has made identifying fake products more difficult.
Checking the authenticity of a product is becoming harder as consumers are often unable to gauge the look and feel of a product before they buy.
Generic stock images are often used to deceive consumers into believing they are buying real products.
Police said laboratory tests have shown counterfeit perfume often contains poisonous chemicals including cyanide and urine.
Among the counterfeit goods sold to unwary consumers are make-up items, perfume, electric hair-styling products and sun cream.
Counterfeit make-up is often produced in unsanitised and unhygienic factories and there have been cases where rats' droppings and poison have also been found in the phoney cosmetics.
In the last 18 months, the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) has helped to protect consumers from being ripped off online.
The unit has suspended more than 5,500 websites which were selling fake luxury goods and seized more than £3.5m worth of products.
Detective Superintendent Maria Woodall said: "Many people don't know about the real dangers counterfeit beauty products pose to their health.
"That is why this week we are urging the public to Wake up - don't fake up!
"Criminals are exploiting every opportunity to fool customers into buying counterfeits in order for them to make some quick cash - putting people's health, homes and lives at risk.
"Beauty products are meant to enhance your features, however the fakes can in fact do quite the opposite.
"Our general rule is: if it seems too good to be true then it probably is."
Chromatography methods are used to separate and identify individual components in a mixture of compounds.
Here we see that the beauty products have been tested using chromatography methods, and laboratory specialists have indentified the elements the cosmetic products are made up of. In this case this includes cyanide, rat droppings, urine and arsenic.
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