Mercury and the challenge of regulating beauty sector in Pakistan

Walk into any cosmetic store across Pakistan you would be greeted with shelves filled with colorful promises of “instant glow”, “fairness in seven days”.

Behind these alluring promises, glossy packaging, fronted by beautiful and flawless skin models, lies a harsh reality: Pakistan’s booming and multibillion-rupee beauty industry is exploiting our deep-rooted cultural obsession with fairer skin. Inherited from the legacy of our colonial era and earlier social hierarchies, this cultural fixation has cemented a widespread belief equating fairer skin to social superiority and wrongly positioning it as a source of confidence. Beyond the empty promises, the deception continues as the shiny packaging and catchy slogans mask the severe human health risk.

The majority of the most popular skin whitening creams contains dangerously high level of mercury – a toxic substance banned in cosmetics under international law, for it causes irreversible damage to the kidney, nervous system, and skin.

Several Pakistani-made beauty creams are being pulled from shelves in multiple countries, after international regulatory bodies and watchdog organizations found and highlighted severe and dangerous contamination of mercury in them. In 2022, the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) banned 14 Pakistani beauty cream brands after their laboratory tests revealed mercury levels thousands of times higher than the global safety limit of 1 part per million (ppm). Similarly, the Food and Drug Authority of the Philippines in 2024 and the Saudi Food and Drug Authority in 2020 issued public health advisories against a particular Pakistani brand for exceeding mercury limits.

Reports published by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) of the United Kingdom in 2023 and the Zero Mercury Working Group (ZMWG) - an initiative led by the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) in 2018 - highlighted Pakistan among six countries producing and exporting mercury-laden whitening creams. These findings were echoed by the World Health Organization, citing data from the California Department of Public Health’s Environmental Health Investigations Branch (EHIB), which detected alarmingly high mercury levels in cosmetic products imported from Pakistan among several other countries from around the world. The pressure on mercury-laden creams trade is growing from both legal and advocacy fronts.

In October 2025, ZMWG published another report reconfirming and highlighting Pakistan’s presence in the global supply chain of mercury-laden creams. Concurrently, the New York Attorney General’s office launched a new enforcement action on October 8 to halt the sale of these illegal cosmetics, clearly mentioning brands imported from Pakistan. This back-to-back development confirms that the issue remains a persistent and high-priority global problem.

Pakistan ratified the Minamata Convention on Mercury in 2017 –which is a global treaty adopted under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The treaty aims to protect human health and the environment from mercury exposure.

In alignment to the treaty, the WHO issued guideline in 2019, that warned that even low-level exposure through skin-lightening creams can cause kidney damage, anxiety, depression, peripheral neuropathy, and skin disorders. Mercury from cosmetics also has the potential to contaminate wastewater, where it transforms into methylmercury, entering the food chain. To adhere to these global standards, the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) adopted Standard PS: 3228-2017, fixing the legal mercury limit for skin creams at “1 ppm (1 mg/kg).”

From an enforcement perspective, in response to a widespread call for action from global community, a few steps have been taken at the national level. While a commitment is visible, the enforcement against toxic cosmetics remains a continuing challenge. In 2018, PSQA issued a notice to a manufacturer in Pakistan found in violation of mercury safety standards. Policy advocacy institutions such Sustainable Policy Institute (SDPI), and professional bodies like the Pakistan Association of Dermatologists have consistently urged for regulatory reforms and action. These entities also played their part in public awareness of the health risk posed by mercury-laced cosmetics. International advocacy group EcoWaste Coalition has also appealed to the Pakistan government to strengthen enforcement and prevent the cross-border trade of these hazardous products.

In response to these concerns, the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has stepped in to close a major domestic regulatory gap that has been the subject of global criticism. The commission has recently initiated an inquiry into deceptive marketing and safety claims of fairness creams, through deployment of its legal mandate under Section 10 of the Competition Act, 2010.

This step is an important milestone in transitioning from passive acknowledgement to proactive enforcement. However, the long-term success of the initiative would depend on interagency coordination among relevant regulatory bodies and trade authorities, enhanced testing facilities and monitoring capacity, and consumer awareness to reduce demand for such unsafe products.

In the end, addressing the mercury contamination in cosmetics is not just about compliance with global conventions, but it’s also a fundamental matter of corporate social responsibility for local businesses.

Manufacturers and undertakings involved in this business have a clear duty to protect consumers by providing honest, transparent information while complying with all legal requirements. Ethical practices and responsible marketing are not just optional – they are essential for the sustainability of their businesses. By aligning commercial success with consumer well-being, Pakistan’s beauty industry needs to take meaningful steps toward a future where fairness is defined by integrity, safety, and accountability - not by the color of one’s skin.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025