Why mercury
Mercury salts block the enzyme that makes melanin, so a cream containing them lightens skin within weeks. They are cheap and they work, which is why they turn up in whitening creams sold outside the licensed trade. They are also absorbed through the skin. Over months of daily use mercury accumulates in the kidneys and the nervous system; the signs are swelling, protein in the urine, tremor, numbness and irritability, and the damage can be permanent.
India's limit is 1 part per million as an unintentional trace (Rule 39(5), Cosmetics Rules 2020). The products in this story carried thousands.
Kerala, 2023 to 2026
Kerala's drug control department began Operation Soundarya in 2023, sampling cosmetics from shops and online sellers and sending them to the state laboratory in Thiruvananthapuram. In January 2025 the health minister said samples of creams and lipsticks had shown mercury at thousands of times the limit; by then the department had seized Rs 7 lakh of stock and registered 33 cases. The third phase in February 2025 covered 101 inspections and 59 samples.
The results reached the public through CDSCO's monthly alerts. The March 2025 list carried mercury failures for Goree Day & Night Beauty Cream, Faiza Beauty Cream and Faiza Whitening Face Wash, and Sandal Beauty Cream, all Pakistan-made and unregistered, and for one batch each of Dabur Fem Cream Bleach and Blue Heaven Get Matte lipstick, plus two imported lipsticks. The April 2025 list added one batch each of Mamaearth Vitamin C Daily Glow cream and Torrent's Ahaglow face wash. By August 2026 Kerala reported four phases complete, Rs 9.64 lakh seized and Faiza and Goree at up to 20,000 ppm.
Maharashtra, 2026
Maharashtra's drive started with patients. Nephrologists in Nagpur linked kidney disease in 18 women to years of using whitening creams; neurologists reported more than a hundred cases of tremor and numbness. Tests on the creams the patients used found mercury at 18 to 40 times the limit. From 29 Mar 2026 the state FDA and police raided sellers in Sambhajinagar, Parbhani, Nanded, Mumbai and Nashik, registered six cases under section 27 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and seized more than Rs 70 lakh of stock; one Nanded store alone held 37 varieties of Pakistani cosmetics worth Rs 50 to 60 lakh.
On 4 Jul 2026 the FDA declared Goree Beauty Cream, Face Fresh Gold and Golden Star Beauty Cream not of standard quality for mercury and lead, stopped their sale and told online marketplaces to delist them. On 10 Jul it added nine more products, including Skinia Korean Goree, Dazller Eterna, Parley, Malika and Hania creams and Goree Whitening Soap. By October the FDA had inspected 29 cosmetics units, suspended three licences and cancelled one.
CDSCO, September 2026
On 8 Sep 2026 CDSCO's cosmetics division issued a public health alert on Goree Beauty Cream and Chandni Whitening Cream: both made in Pakistan, neither registered for import, both with heavy metals beyond the limits. It directed every enforcement unit and state controller to stop their sale and asked the public to report sellers. Two weeks later reporters found both creams on open sale in Ahmedabad.
Separately, the Drugs Controller General was reported in July 2025 to be preparing a ban on the manufacture, sale and import of any cosmetic with more than 1 ppm mercury, which would bring India into line with the Minamata Convention. No draft has been published.
Two different kinds of finding
The Pakistani creams are unregistered imports with repeated, extreme failures; they cannot lawfully be sold in India at all, with or without a lab result. The Indian brands named in Kerala's lists, Dabur, Mamaearth, Torrent and Blue Heaven, each have one failed batch on record and no recall or licence action since. The site records both, and says which is which.
What to do
Stop using any cream on these lists. If you have used a whitening cream for months, especially one bought loose or from a Pakistani brand, tell a doctor; a urine or blood mercury test is simple. Keep the pack and the bill, and report the seller to the state drugs controller or to cosmetics@cdsco.nic.in.