Cosmetics fail checks for excess packaging
Substandard packaging found during checks.
Cosmetics sold online were found to have the largest percentage of overpackaging of five types of commodities with products from Chanel, La Mer, Gucci, Burberry and Laneige on the excessive packaging list, Shanghai's market watchdog revealed on Tuesday.
The Shanghai Administration for Market Regulation tested biscuits, cosmetics, tea, health products and coffee bought from five online shopping platforms including Tmall and Taobao.
In total, 50 batches of products from 41 companies were checked, and 12 had excessive packaging, the administration said.
Seven batches of cosmetics, or 70 percent of cosmetics checked, were found to have excess packaging, while 10 to 20 percent of tea, coffee and biscuits were overpackaged.
All health products passed checks, according to the administration.
The list of overpackaged items included cleansing cream sold by Chanel China, Aerin perfume gift boxes and La Mer gift boxes sold by Estee Lauder (Shanghai), a Gucci gift box with perfume and spray, and Burberry fragrance sold by Sephora (Shanghai), and Laneige face mask gift boxes.
All of them were sold on Tmall and an investigation is underway, according to the administration.
They all failed for the ratio of empty space inside boxes, one of the major criteria in determining excessive packaging, according to China's national standard on packaging.
Excessive packaging wastes resources, pollutes the environment when the package is discarded and leads to extravagance, the administration said.
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