Beauty Mask Blamed in Fujian Death Pulled from Stores
By wchung | 07 Sep, 2025

Watsons China has pulled from its stores across China a skin-lightening facial masks after a 42-year-old woman’s relatives claimed the product was the cause of her death.

The woman surnamed Jin, who lives in the city of Fuzhou in Fujian province, bought Watson’s White Pearl facial mask in July, according to news portal fjsen.com. After she used the mask on Aug 6, her body turned red and her lips purple. She was rushed to a hospital where she later died.

The facial mask met national quality standards and passed a toxicological risk assessment conducted by a third-party agency in Europe, said a statement posted Friday on Watsons’ Sina Weibo micro blog. No other complaints of allergic reactions had been received despite the sale of over 900,000 boxes of the mask since 2010, it added.

Despite the lack of any evidence that the facial mask caused Jin’s death, the product has been pulled from the shelves of Watsons China, said a spokeswoman for the firm. She said the company was offering a full refund to anyone who had bought the mask. The product will be returned to stores after it has been tested.

Jin’s family has not agreed to cooperate with Watsons in its effort at investigating any possible link between the mask and Jin’s death, Watsons had announced earlier.

An officer with the Shangjie police station said police are trying to help family members negotiate with Watsons China. The incident is classified as a civil case and remains under investigation, the police said.

A dermatologist at Fujian Medical University Union Hospital said she had never come across a case in which a person had died from using a facial mask.

Watsons China is is a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based A.S. Watson Group which operates over 1,000 stores on the mainland.