Cosmetic chaos! Australia’s most popular beauty brands are ordered to pull products from shelves over BANNED ingredient

Some of Australia’s best-known cosmetics labels have been slapped with formal compliance notices after authorities found they contained a banned ingredient.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) sent out the notices to six businesses in NSW it said has used microbeads, or microscopic plastic particles.

The department said testing found the businesses were selling nine products containing the ingredient and ordered they be removed from retail shelves.

This move makes NSW one of the first regulators in the world to clamp down on the use of microbeads in personal care items.

Despite a federal plan a decade ago to phase out the the small plastic fragments, mostly used in exfoliating scrubs, are still turning up in stores. 

Water treatment plants can’t capture all of the microscopic particles, the EPA warned, so they flow straight into the environment and food chains.

‘Plastic products should not belong in skincare or waterways,’ EPA chief executive Tony Chappel said.

Mr Chappel pointed out that some of the particles were made from bioplastics such as polylactic acid (PLA) and cellulose acetate, yet these still do not break down and remain defined as plastic under the Plastic Reduction and Circular Economy Act.

A 2023 article from scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology which was quoted in the EPA material warned that microbeads ‘have the potential to affect soil sediment, water, and air all at once, yet nobody is paying attention’.

The EPA said many of the affected products were exfoliating scrubs. 

These products include Aesthetics Skincare’s Bio Fermented Triple Action Scrub, Coles Group’s KOi for Men Cleansing Face Scrub and Desert Lime, Frostbland’s Alya Skin Pomegranate Facial Scrub and Exfoliating Sorbet, JMSR Australia’s Jan Marini Bioglycolic Resurfacing Body Scrub and Cranberry Orange Exfoliator, McPherson’s Consumer Products’ Dr LeWinn’s Essentials Gentle Exfoliant Weekly Facial Polishing Gel; and Natio’s Purifying Face Scrub for Men and Ageless Skin Renewal Exfoliator.

Some of the products remain available in other states and territories. 

Jan Marini lists its ‘bioglycolic’ body scrub as unavailable in NSW but is still sold elsewhere.

Back in 2016, state and territory environment ministers backed a voluntary industry phase-out of microbeads in rinse-off products. 

Accord Australasia which is the industry body for hygiene and personal-care companies managed this voluntary campaign.

In 2022, Accord and the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water declared the voluntary phase-out ‘delivered’ and said the target of removing 100 per cent of microbeads from rinse-off products by 2025 had been met. 

Accord has since told media it is no longer coordinating control of microbeads and that the job has passed to states that legislated bans.

NSW, the ACT, Western Australia and Queensland now ban plastic microbeads in rinse-off personal care products. Other states do not have the same oversight, the EPA warned.

The NSW notices carry muscle: failing to comply can attract penalties of up to $550,000, plus $55,000 per day for ongoing breaches.

A Coles spokesperson said the company acted immediately. 

‘Following our review of the ingredient identified in the notice, we removed the product from sale in all stores nationally,’ they said. 

‘We have since updated our policies to ensure it is not included in any own-brand products again.’

The EPA said once companies were notified they moved quickly to remove stock.

Microbeads are a form of microplastic, and studies are increasingly finding tiny plastic particles in the natural environment.

A recent US study which tested human brain samples found microplastics made up around 0.5 per cent of average sample weight and indicated levels rose about 50 per cent since 2016.