WARNING ON FAKE MAKE-UP TAINTED BY CYANIDE
FAKE make-up loaded with toxic chemicals is flooding into Britain, police warned last night.
Counterfeit versions of leading brands such as MAC, Benefit and Urban Decay have been found with dangerous levels of lead, mercury and even cyanide.
Criminal gangs are using squalid underground laboratories to make huge quantities of the bogus cosmetics, which are sold on market stalls and through websites including eBay and Amazon.
Buyers risk suffering severe allergic reactions as well as long-term health problems. Over the past 18 months i nvestigators have suspended more than 5,500 websites for selling fake luxury goods.
In one shipping container police found more than 4,700 counterfeit versions of MAC products including foundation, bronzer, lip gloss and eye shadow.
Senior detectives at City of London Police are so alarmed they have issued a national alert.
One victim was left fearing for her
YOU probably wouldn’t find it on the shelf of the local chemist in Nairn – but then Hollywood stars always have some special requirements.
And despite Tilda Swinton’s ‘simple’ Highland way of life, it appears she goes the extra mile – and pound – for her beauty regimen.
The Chronicles of Narnia actress has revealed how she keeps age at bay – with a lotion ‘infused’ with amethysts, rubies, sapphires and diamonds.
The 54-year-old Oscar winner’s flawless complexion a has made her a celebrity model,
‘Highland air and chip fat’
but at a cost of more than £200 for a single fluid ounce of själ’s Bio-regeneratif Serum, only a Hollywood star could afford it.
The six-in-one cream was developed by mother and daughter team Karen and Kristin Petrovich with the help of ‘holistic healers, researchers and biochemists’.
Swinton, who lives in Nairn, on the Moray Firth, told US magazine InStyle she swore by it.
‘Last summer, while shooting in a hot, dry place I used this and it made all the difference,’ she said. ‘I don’t usually wear make-up, I tend to look like a drag queen when I put all that stuff on.’
Själ, the Swedish word for soul, promises that the serum ‘focuses on cellular regeneration, lifting and wrinkles’, allows for ‘optimised cellular energy and metabolism’ and protects from ‘radiation and electromagnetic frequencies’. Swinton also flies more than 00 miles to Paris to have a stylist trim her trademark short-back-and-sides hairdo.
But the mother of two insisted she led a down-to-earth life at home. ‘In real life my skincare secrets are Highland air and chip fat,’ she said.