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Oct. 6--BEIJING -- A Chinese woman is attempting to sue a Hong Kong movie star for damages over the failure of a beauty product promoted by the actress to work as advertised, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.
Lu Ping, from Jiangxi Province in southeast China, said she bought an anti-wrinkle facial product of the SK-II brand after seeing it advertised by actress Carina Lau.
The 43-year-old woman is now blaming the star because instead of making her face silky, the product allegedly left her skin itchy and gave her a burning sensation.
Sales of SK-II beauty products were halted on mainland China last month after the authorities discovered they contained two banned substances, chromium and neodymium.
Lu bought the beauty product, made by the Japanese unit of U.S. consumer products firm Procter & Gamble Co., after seeing an advertisement in a fashion magazine in January last year.
She believes Lau should shoulder some responsibility for the failure of the facial milk to improve her skin or make her look younger.
"She (Lau) should pay for cheating customers with false advertising," Lu told Xinhua. "I wouldn't have bought it (the product) if she hadn't advertised it."
She added, "I guess actresses can't pay for labs to check the safety of cosmetics, but at least they can stop promoting them when the products are shown to have quality problems."
The maker of SK-II products said last month that while it does not see any quality problems, it is temporarily stopping sales on mainland China, citing "confusion among consumers."
A statement issued by the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, also last month, said the authorities in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, as well as a European Union group, all said the products do not pose safety problems.
However, following the announcement that banned substances had been discovered, Chinese mainland consumers flocked to department stores to return SK-II products.
Lu is waiting for her local court to decide if she can sue the actress, according to Xinhua.
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