More than 20 skin-lightening cosmetics products already identified as containing prohibited mercury levels were still listed for sale on Amazon, Temu and TikTok Shop, according to a Reuters investigation published on 16 September 2026. The listings were found across the United States, France, Belgium, India and the UAE.

These products had been flagged before. What the investigation shows is that a flag and a removal are two different things, and that the gap between them can stay open in several markets at once. France and Belgium sit inside the EU single market, so a listing live there is reaching European consumers under European rules.

Scale is worth holding in mind here. Twenty products is not an industry, and the investigation was looking at one narrow product category. The finding is about process rather than volume: marketplace safety screening is a filter, and a filter is not a guarantee.

If you sell beauty or personal care products into Europe, the practical read is uncomfortable. A live listing tells you the marketplace accepted your submission. It doesn't tell you the product meets the rules of the market it ships to, and it won't help you when someone works back through the catalogue. Removal, when it comes, tends to arrive without warning, and it takes your ranking and your reviews with it.

There is a second point worth separating out. The listings span five markets with different regulatory regimes, which is exactly the situation a growing brand creates for itself when channel expansion runs ahead of compliance work. Commercial risk sits with the brand whose name is on the product, not with the channel that sold it.

For most US beauty brands the fix isn't dramatic. It's early. A formula and label review across every market in scope is a piece of work with a defined end, and it happens once per product family rather than once per listing. Rebuilding a delisted catalogue is the opposite, and you do it under time pressure with revenue paused.

None of this is an argument against marketplaces. Europe's beauty demand largely sits on them. It is an argument for knowing what you are selling, and where, before you list it.

Worth checking before your next European listing goes live:

• Which markets your listings are live in, including any you did not deliberately open
• Whether every ingredient in the formula is permitted in each of those markets
• Who is named as your point of contact for product safety in each market you sell into
• What happens to your catalogue, and your seller metrics, if a listing is pulled without notice

Expandly's work with beauty brands starts at the formula and the label, well before a single listing goes live.