Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) has cautioned Kenyans against using banned cosmetics and skin lightening products as they were likely to cause bodily harm and complications.
Some of the banned products include bleaching creams, lotions, gels, and soaps, which also contain hydroquinone, steroids and hormonal rations that should be registered by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board for medical use.
Speaking during a press interview after a media training workshop in Garissa, the North Eastern KEBS Quality assurance and Inspection Manager Abdinasir Harret called on the media to help in public sensitization campaigns against the use of such products.
“KEBS has listed some of the banned products on our website. Basically, those products have either hydroquinone or mercury chemical elements that are harmful to our health because they can cause skin diseases or can be cancerous to our bodies,” Harret said.
“I appeal to the media fraternity to help us spread the word on this because you interact with citizens on a daily basis and enlighten them on some of these products because for example, medfine, which most of our ladies in Garissa and Wajir are using, is a medicinal product but it is misused as a skin lightening product,” he added.
Harret regretted that despite the ban, the products continued to flood the Kenyan market through smuggling from neighbouring countries through the porous borders.
However, he said that the KEBS surveillance officers were alert and would take legal action against traders and importers of such products when intercepted.
“Mostly, they access our market through unaccustomed routes either through the Kenya- Somalia border or other borders and transport them through panya routes,” he said.
“Our officers are on alert and if we find such products in the market, we destroy them and sometimes take legal action against the traders and importers who deal with them,” he added.
According to the KEBS website, some of the skin lightening products include Jaribu Skin Lightening Lotion, Amira Skin Lightening Lotion, A3 Cleartouch Complexion Lotion, Fair White Body Clearing Milk and Precieux Treatment Beauty Lotion, Movate, Jaribu, Rico, Miki, Mekako, Tura, Fair lady, and Jambo.
By Erick Kyalo
