Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Hydroquinone in the UK

hippo - 22-7-2019 at 07:21

Hi all,
I was about to buy some hydroquinone on eBay and it informed me that any skin bleaching agents are banned from being sold in the UK. Has anyone else in the UK had this problem and found a way to source it or make it from (mostly) OTC chemicals?
Regards,
hippo

teodor - 22-7-2019 at 07:41

Sorry, I don't know the answer to your question but main usage of hydroquinone is as a part of a photographic developers. Banning this substance in UK means that making black-and-white photos on films is also banned by the same law. And how is it possible?

DavidJR - 22-7-2019 at 08:01

Yes, I've come across this before when I used to sell pure hydroquinone on eBay (no, I don't have any left to sell, sorry). Hydroquinone itself is allowed in the UK, but it is banned as an ingredient in cosmetics. Apparently the relevant authorities asked eBay to prevent sales of hydroquinone creams, but eBay, in their infinite wisdom, decided to block sales of all listings that contain the word 'hydroquinone' to buyers within the UK. You could still make a listing as a UK eBayer, but no UK people could buy it - and eBay didn't even bother to tell sellers either, which I think is pretty rude (I was wondering why sales were lower than I'd hoped and saw I had only international sales, so then I investigated). My workaround was to list it under other names (hydrochinone, p-benzenediol, 1,4-dihydroxybenzene etc) but I decided not to restock since customers don't search for these terms and it didn't sell well without the word 'hydroquinone' in the listing.

[Edited on 22-7-2019 by DavidJR]

Chemi Pharma - 22-7-2019 at 08:10

Quote: Originally posted by hippo  
Hi all,
I was about to buy some hydroquinone on eBay and it informed me that any skin bleaching agents are banned from being sold in the UK. Has anyone else in the UK had this problem and found a way to source it or make it from (mostly) OTC chemicals?
Regards,
hippo


How much you judge fair to pay for it/quantity? I can delivery it for you as a discrete package, even in UK. Look at my announce in another thread here: http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=151915 and send me a U2U:)