Published on January 20, 2014

Indian cosmetic is likely to treble by 2020, as retail beauty and cosmetic industries has currently estimated at $950 million and is expected to treble to $2.68 billion. In the coming years, annual growth of Indian beauty and cosmetics market is projected to remain in the range of 15–20%. Over the last five years, cosmetic products have seen a growth of 60% and the number of salons has gradually increased to 35% growth rate.

According to the latest study conducted by a leading green NGO, nearly more amount of heavy metals have been used including mercury, in fairness products of reputed cosmetic companies. The recent test conducted by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) Pollution Monitoring Lab (PML) said that despite the ban of using mercury in cosmetics in India, it was found that most of the reputed cosmetic companies had 44% of mercury in the fairness creams. Moreover, in lipstick samples that were tested found 50% of chromium and 43% of nickel. As per CSE, 73 cosmetic products of four different categories were tested for heavy metals, whereas, 32 fairness cream of both men and women were tested for mercury.

As per their test, high amount of mercury was found in 14 fairness cream in the range of 0.10 to 1.97 parts per million. Similarly, high amount of chromium was found in 15 out of 30 lipsticks that were tested in the range of 0.45 to 17.89 parts per million while nickel was found in 13 out of 30 products tested in the range of 0.57 to 9.18 parts per million. By the help of California Department of Public Health, consumers can now see whether their personal care products contain toxic chemicals or not by using online database.