KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 30 — The Health Ministry (MOH) has cancelled notification of five cosmetic products after they were detected to contain scheduled poisons and are not permitted to be sold in Malaysia.

The five products are Karisma Aqua Birds Nest, which contains hydroquinone, Skin Revolution - PAP - Blemish Control Serum, which contains clindamycin, Skin Revolution -PAP- Blemish Fade Cream, which contains metronidazole, Ufora Daily Treatment 10g, which contains betamethasone 17-valerat, and Dnars Gold Debalen Cream (Night), which contains hydroquinone, tretinoin and betamethasone 17-valerate.

"Sellers and distributors of these cosmetics products need to stop sales and distribution immediately as it is against the Control of Drugs and Cosmetics Regulations 1984,” the ministry said in a statement today.

The ministry added that products containing hydroquinone, clindamycin, metronidazole, tretinoin and betamethasone 17-valerate were medicines that need to be registered with the drug control authorities and can only be used on the advice of medical health professionals as the unsupervised use of such products could lead to unwanted side effects.

"Hydroquinone causes redness on skin where it is applied on, discomfort, unwanted change of skin colour, skin hypersensitivity, while tretinoin causes redness of skin, discomfort, pain, peeling of the skin and light hypersensitivity.

"The use of clindamycin and metronidazole can have detrimental results on health and raise the risk of resistance, which in turn reduces its effectiveness to treat infections, while betamethasone 17-valerate results in skin thinning, irritation and acne,” the ministry said. — Bernama