No one could believe a rented house smaller than 10 square meters in Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Phu District can be a ‘manufacturing plant’ where hundreds of fake shower gel bottles are made on a daily basis.

Sang, owner of the facility and a well-known cosmetics wholesaler in the city, did not hesitate to introduce his bodywash-making technology to a Tuoi Tre correspondent.

He took your correspondent to buy necessary substances from stores along Hong Bang Street and Kim Bien market in District 5, before gathering them at his facility, a small rented house on Nguyen Minh Chau Street, which was full of empty bodywash bottles bearing Rose and White Care brands.

Sang then poured all of the substances into a 100-liter barrel, mixed them with water, and ended up stirring the whole liquid with a machine.

The stirring lasted for around two minutes, after which Sang blended the liquid again, using his bare hands.

The substance-water mixture now turned into a viscous and foamy liquid, which Sang said marked the first stage of the shower gel making process.

The man then poured around a kilogram of goat milk additives and some salt into the barrel and stirred it for the final time with a long wooden stick.

“It’s all done. Look, isn’t it goat-milk shower gel?” he said, referring to the goat-milk scent from the newly-produced barrel of what he called bodywash.

The liquid would be put into the White Care and Rose bottles before being distributed to sellers around the city, he said.

On average, the entire process lasted for only 30 minutes, which was enough to produce some 100 1.2-liter bottles and 200 550-ml bottles, he revealed.

The bottles all bear labels in English, indicating that they are ‘made in Malaysia’ and have expiry dates until June 2016, complete with the anti-fake stamps.

Dubious ingredients

Sang says all of the substances to make his bodywash are available at Kim Bien market. These substances, however, are on sale without adequate information about their manufacturers and origins, and their quality is thus questionable.

While the authentic Rose and White Care products fetch more than VND100,000 (US$4.81) a bottle, Sang distributes his fake products at only VND21,000 – VND30,000 a bottle.

Besides being sold to shops and markets in the city, his products are also bought by many traders across the country, Sang reveals.

Meanwhile, using cosmetics made from the dubious ingredients is extremely dangerous, Associate Professor and Doctor Pham Thanh Quan warns.

“When mixed together without following an adequate procedure, the cheap, poor-quality substances can create harmful reactions and leave toxic substances on the skins of the consumers,” Quan, who is teaching chemistry technology at the HCMC University of Technology, elaborates.

“Consumers may suffer itches and skin diseases,” he warns.