# Spreading of Dangerous Skin-Lightening Products as a Result of Colourism: A Review
## 7 Notifications on Safety Gate  
The European Commission's EU Rapid Alert System for Dangerous Non-Food Products (formerly known as RAPEX) [68] enables the rapid exchange of information on non-food products on the European market that pose a risk to the health and safety of consumers. This system has a dedicated public website, the \"Safety Gate\", which provides access to weekly updates of alerts submitted by national authorities participating in the system. We decided to run a search on this website on skin lighteners available between 2011 and 2020 on the European market and identified them as not complying with Regulation 1223/2009 due to the presence of non-permitted ingredients. The search criteria adopted were: the name of the active substance (mercury, hydroquinone, clobetasol, betamethasone, fluicolone) entered in the free text search box, the product category (\"Cosmetics'), the hazard type (\"Chemical'), the reporting type (\"All') and the product user (\"All'). According to the results of this survey, in the decade 2011-2020, 234 cosmetic products intended for skin-lightening were reported as presenting a chemical risk, due to the presence of mercury, hydroquinone or corticosteroids (Table 3). In some cases, the banned substances were listed on the packaging, but very often the label incorrectly listed the ingredients and omitted the illegal ones. It is important to keep in mind that, although most of the notified products were available in physical shops, some were also sold online (especially via the eBay platform). The number of mercury-containing cosmetics notified on the European Safety Gate in the decade 2011-2020 was 61; almost all of these products (54) were creams, and only two were soaps, while the type of formulation was not declared for five of them. The range of mercury concentrations (declared value on the packaging or measured amount) was 0.4 mg/kg-38,800 mg/kg (3.88% by weight); 34 products contained more than 0.5% (5 g/kg) by weight of mercury and 20 contained more than 1% (10 g/kg). In terms of their geographic origin, most of these cosmetics were produced in Pakistan (52.5%) and the People's Republic of China (23.0%), while 11.5% were of unknown provenance. On the Safety Gate portal, 140 notifications concerning skin lighteners containing hydroquinone were published in the years 2011-2020 (five notifications of cosmetics containing hydroquinone concerning glue for false eyelashes and glue for false nails were not included here). Of the notified products, 68 were creams, 46 were body milks or lotions, 11 were oils, five were soaps, two were gel creams, and one was a gel; the type of the remaining seven products was not specified. The concentrations of hydroquinone detected or declared on the label ranged from 0.01% to 9.6% by weight; 52.9% of the notified products contained at least 1% hydroquinone, and 8.6% contained at least 5%. Concerning their countries of origin, 32.9% were from \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline Year & Mercury & Hydroquinone & Corticosteroids * \\ \hline
2020 & 9 & 8 & 6 \\ \hline
2019 & 15 & 6 & 2 (1) \\ \hline
2018 & 0 & 8 & 1 \\ \hline
2017 & 0 & 8 & 0 \\ \hline
2016 & 0 & 12 & 2 (1) \\ \hline
2015 & 0 & 19 & 0 \\ \hline
2014 & 2 & 12 & 8 (1) \\ \hline
2013 & 30 & 3 & 2 \\ \hline
2012 & 4 & 22 & 7 (1) \\ \hline
2011 & 1 & 42 & 5 \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Skin-lighteners not complying with Regulation 1223/2009 notified in the period 2011–2020 on the Safety Gate website (* Numbers in brackets refer to betamethasone notifications). Cote d'Ivoire, 10% were from the United States, 7.1% were from France, 6.4% were from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 3.6% were from the United Kingdom, and 7.1% were from other countries, mainly in Africa; the origin of the remaining 27.9% was not identified.