"“The results were frightening. Tests found high levels of aluminum, which has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease. Five of the counterfeit products tested positive for the metal Beryllium, a known carcinogen. What was more concerning; there were dangerously high levels of lead in seven of the counterfeit products, including two bogus M·A·C eye shadows. A counterfeit Chanel eye shadow turned out to be loaded with potentially dangerous bacteria. ‘The amount of bacteria you found in this counterfeit makeup was disgusting,’ Dr. Buka told Inside Edition."I am not trying to dispute the above. It's clear and evident that knock-off cosmetics could be dangerous to your well-being. In fact, even if one had not read the Babble article, I think they would be able to articulate the dangers involved with the use of these counterfeit products. Indeed, the article was clear about the number of fakes that have saturated the market, tricking innocent shoppers into purchasing these dangerous products, believing them to be real.
However, what the article fails to mention is the number of people who are purposely shopping for fakes. There absolutely are people who think that $52 is an absurd amount of money to pay for a Naked palette or $20 is a crazy figure for a single shadow compact and, instead of forking over the money to Urban Decay for the product, they purchase crap like this in order to save money at the expense of their poor, poor faces. Many people think, "well, yes, it's made in and sold from China, but nearly everything I use is made in China." What I want to say is that it's just not that simple.
When I read articles about counterfeit products, they tend to, as the Babble article did, address merely the damage one can cause to their own well being as the reason not to purchase from non-authorized retailers. It makes me sad because that is truly the tip of the iceberg. Counterfeit products not only POTENTIALLY cause injury to their users, they also ABSOLUTELY cause injury to others. People on the other side of the planet are injured every day so that cheap, fake "Urban Decay" can be made available at pennies on the dollar via merchants in shady stores, from street vendors, and from overseas websites who specialize in rock bottom prices on a wide variety of items, from electronics to handbags to cosmetics. And, by "people on the other side of the planet", I mean children.
This is where I'm going to play a little "logic leap frog" that I hope everyone can follow. Counterfeit products are illegal, not only here, but also in the Asian countries in which they are produced. A company that exists solely to violate the law by producing counterfeit products will likely ignore other laws as well. One type of law that is repeatedly violated by these factories are the various child labor laws that exist in these countries. Now, when a factory is willing to employ (I use that term loosely, as children working in a factory often are required to sleep next to the machines they operate and make as little as 20 cents a day) children illegally, they probably aren't following most human rights laws. Children work in extraordinarily hot factories with inadequate ventilation around dangerous chemicals. They work 12+ hour days, seven days a week. They are physically abused by their "employers".
A decent, short read on the subject is this CNBC article, which states:
"I remember walking into an assembly plant in Thailand a couple of years ago and seeing six or seven little children, all under 10 years old, sitting on the floor assembling counterfeit leather handbags. The owners had broken the children's legs and tied the lower leg to the thigh so the bones wouldn't mend. [They] did it because the children said they wanted to go outside and play."
According to the International Trademark Association’s Alan Drewsen, this type of exploitation of minors is par for the course at counterfeit clothing factories. "There are issues of child labor in a lot of these plants around the world," he told the New York Daily News.
Absolutely. Horrifyingly. Heartbreaking. And it's getting worse.
The child labor problem in China was on the decline, until they were ranked #20 on the Child Labor Index in late 2013 (a ranking of the worst of the child labor law violators in the world), up from #53 just a year earlier. This can be at least partly attributed to the rise in demand for counterfeit goods in the developed world.
We can sugar coat it all we want, but if the only reason a person won't buy counterfeit products is because it might hurt their skin, either they aren't aware of the full truth (because of articles like Babble's, which stress the self-damage that these products can cause) or because they are so self-involved that the plight of children in developing or poorer countries is so far removed from their thought pattern.
It boils down to this: if you purchase counterfeit goods, you're contributing to the horrific systematic abuse of children in Asia. Knowing this, is there EVER a reason to throw caution to the wind and buy that Urban Decay palette from eBay, the pink M-A-C lippie you've been pining over on Amazon, or the baked shadows you spotted on Craigslist for a song? Hey, it saved you a couple of bucks and all it REALLY cost was the legs of a fourth grader who hasn't seen the sun in a month.
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ReplyDeleteGreat post! The one thing I don't agree with is your use of the word "dupe" as meaning the same thing as fake, counterfeit etc. Generally when people are looking for "dupes" they're looking for cheaper products that do the same thing. Not a knockoff, but a product made by a completely different (but still totally legitimate) company that has similar results for a lower price. You may still get what you pay for when you buy a dupe instead of the original product, but it's not at all the same as buying a fake product.
ReplyDeleteFair enough :D I DO think there are legitimate dupes on the market (for example, I see people recommend certain NYX lippies as dupes for MAC), but I also have seen people recommending products from Buyincoins or Tmart as "dupes", when they're really just fake products. That said, I agree the language was kind of wonky, so I'll remove the word dupe from the title so that people understand that I'm no referencing legitimate dupes.
DeleteAnd I'm glad you liked the post overall!
Good post. However the comment "Tests found high levels of aluminum, which has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease" is untrue. Please reference www.alz.org truth or myth section. In short it reads.."... studies have failed to confirm any role for aluminum in causing Alzheimer’s." Metals are not good in anything, I do agree, but myths cause confusion and should be corrected.
ReplyDeleteOver all I do agree with this post and found it to be well written.
Thanks. Just so you know, I wasn't trying to state that as fact. I was merely quoting the article that I linked (because it was spreading through the internet like wildfire). I do appreciate your help pointing people in the right direction though!
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