PUTRAJAYA: The public have been advised not to buy or use eight cosmetic products detected to contain scheduled poisons, namely mercury, hydroquinone and tretinoin, which are not allowed in cosmetic products.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the products involved were Moleek Day Cream; Adel Miracle Flawless Serum; Ah Beauty Night Cream (containing mercury); Ndz UV Whitening (hydroquinone); Snow Cream Normal; Snow Cream Sensitive; Dnars Nar Cream – Sensitive; and Ellfie Night Cream (hydroquinone and tretinoin).

“Notification of the products involved has been revoked by the health ministry’s pharmaceutical services senior director following the detection of scheduled poisons in them.”

Dr Noor Hisham said products containing hydroquinone and tretinoin had to be registered with the Drug Control Authority and could only be used with advice from health professionals as unsupervised use could cause redness to the skin, discomfort, discolouration of the skin, and hypersensitivity.

Mercury can be absorbed into the body and cause damage to the kidneys and nervous system.

Dr Noor Hisham said the sale and distribution of the products were in violation of the Control of Drugs and Cosmetics Regulations 1984.

Earlier, in the Dewan Rakyat, Health Minister Dr S Subramaniam warned beauty centres or salons against providing Botox injection services as the product was beyond their jurisdiction.

He said the beauty procedure had been classified by the National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau as a type of medicine and its use must be handled by registered medical practitioners who had been trained.

“The Botox injection breaches regulations because any type of treatment in terms of medicine can only be provided at centres registered with the health ministry.”

The minister said beauty salons could only carry out beauty treatment on the outer skin or body, but Botox was a kind of product that was injected into the skin.