Banned cosmetics trade still thriving

River Road. A street that is ever bustling with lots of activity and booming businesses. Along this busy passage in Nairobi’s downtown area, the street is dotted with tens of cosmetics shops.

Due to increased competition for customers, some stalls have their salespeople stand along corridors to waylay passers-by to purchase cosmetics from their beauty shops with promises of ''bei poa'' (good prices).

However, the Nation has learned that there is also another reason the women are strategically positioned along corridors and not out in the open.

In 2009, the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) cracked the whip on the local beauty retail industry and banned various skin lightening creams, gels, lotions and soaps for containing harmful chemicals such as hydroquinone and mercury.

Some of the creams on the Kebs ban list include Peau Claire Beauty Body Lotion, Caro light, Amira Skin Lightening Lotion,[] and Skin Balance Lemon Cream among others.

The sellers at the downtown beauty shops, fully aware that there's still demand for the banned products, are careful not to display them on shelves. Instead, they use these women at the entrance of buildings to sell the illegal creams.