Trends of whitening agent advertising in Malaysia / Azura Ab Jalil

Background: Skin whitening products are commercially available for cosmetic purposes in order to obtain a lighter skin appearance. Advertisement and other promotional activities of cosmetic products should be responsible to the information of the cosmetic products and does not mislead the end users. Advertising through printed media such as newspaper and magazine has become a vital source of information about cosmetic products for consumers.
Objective: To determine the magnitude of adherence of newspaper and magazme advertisement of whitening products towards Guidelines for Control of Cosmetic Products in Malaysia.
Methods: 4 most common magazines and 5 most common newspaper were identified and selected for the study. All whitening products advertisement were extracted from the selected magazines and newspaper. All collected data from the advertisement were transferred onto data collection form. The advertisement data of skin whitening products were examined and classified according to the categories from the Guidelines for Control of Cosmetic Products in Malaysia 2009. Descriptive analysis were carry out using Microsoft Excel software version 2013.