Hair removal cream’ left woman with weeping sores
By Susan Greenwood
A woman who suffered bad burns after applying a wrongly labelled hair removal cream is warning fellow customers to learn from her mistake.
99p Stores Ltd, a chain of discount retailers, was fined £2,500 last week after its Eden Walk store sold Jan Chatfield, 44, of Frimley Road, Chessington, a tube of Veet which burnt her face so badly she could not leave the house for two weeks.
The cream had no instructions in English and later tests showed the product was not even Veet, produced by company Reckitt Benckiser, but one which had a pH level of 14.9 per cent.
The skin’s ideal pH level, which shows its balance between alkaline and acid, is between 5.5 and six.
Mrs Chatfield said: "I had used the product before so just thought I could use it in the same way. I put the cream on and immediately I got a horrible burning sensation.
“I wiped it off straight away but I was covered in tiny pin pricks and they were weeping. It was so bad I couldn’t go out for weeks.”
When interviewed by Kingston Trading Standards the company, which has its headquarters in Daventry, admitted its suppliers had advised that English instructions were needed and that they had recently been prosecuted for a similar offence.
They pleaded guilty at Kingston Magistrates Court on October 17 to an offence under the Consumer Protection Act. As well as the £2,500 fine 99p Stores Ltd also had to pay £500 costs.
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