Beauty Injectables in Malaysia-What is Fake and What is Original- Their Origins

Beauty injections readily available in Malaysia have made the users susceptible by misleading them into purchasing products which are repacked & relabelled as something in which they are not.


This industry was started about 5-8 years ago when at the time original products were brought in from overseas. At the beginning the suppliers were happy. But increasingly, due to competition from increasing number of suppliers, the prices of the products dropped to a worrying level after a while. 

They realised that having the same items that other suppliers had would cut into their profit because customers had a choice. Thus some creative suppliers have taken the route of importing the same products, removing the labels and applying new labels making bold claims purportedly having better ingredients eg vitamin C + collagen instead of just the vitamin C content. Thus, individuals who thought that these products were better (because they contained collagen) would obviously switch to the supposedly 'better' & more expensive ones. And the supplier who created this had now created a new market of the same item but by a different name, and in a single swipe, had succeeded in protecting its business interests.

Some, being more creative and wanting to increase their profits even more, imported lesser quality products from China, Vietnam, cambodia, India & Taiwan since they were far cheaper alternatives compared to European originals, and removed these items from the original packaging and applied new labels/boxes/holograms created wholly in Malaysia to make them look original (holograms can easily be created by specialised printing facilities in Malaysia). 

A few, still not content with this resorted to labelling them as a new product and sometimes 'borrowed' well known brand names (eg Laroscorbine Platinium Roche, NC24 or Tationil Bayer) or with totally new brands which had not existed prior to that & purportedly infused with novel ingredients, so they will not have any competition.  So such products have historically come into existence in this manner described above. Some novel ingredients said to exist in these injectables are tranexamic acid, kojic acid and alpha lipoic acid (present in a product called Biome).

Little do they know that such ingredients CANNOT be injected into the vein directly. Tranexamic acid for instance cannot be injected into a vein because it will promote blood clot (usually only prescribed to those with uncontrolled bleeding eg heavy menses) which may lead to whats termed hypercoagulability disorders which may in turn result in DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) or even potentially fatal lung complication PE (Pulmonay Embolism), Kojic acid will cause convulsion if done the same way and it has a propensity to cause embryo, liver and kidney toxicity and the possibility of mutagenicity (which will lead to cancer) and is currently being banned as a cosmetic ingredient in Japan, Korea and Switzerland, Alpha lipoic acid if injected into the bloodstream will aggravate heart problems because it raises the homocystein levels. 

What is actually present in these products are usually none other than glutathione & vitamin C. Some will utilise Gerovital H3 which is relabelled as something else such as Sentien Cell for example. (PS: Kojic acid and tranexamic acid does have anti-pigmentation effects if applied topically through the skin, but they are not to be injected into the vein which can cause deleterious effects). Any beneficial effects claimed to be of benefit derived from such repacked/relabelled products can be wholly attributed to what's called a placebo effect.



It has to be said that this trend, of relabelling dubios products to make them look legitimate is not a problem exclusive to Malaysia. This trend even started much earlier on in Indonesia (Malaysia lagged behind Indonesia in this matter) and they produced similar products with different brands such as Oxydermal, MJ range of whitening injections such as MJ gold, MJ Platinium & MJ Titanium, Rodotex, Miracle Rose, various Heel (non-original products) as well as others. There are also companies in Taiwan doing the same such as so called Strong Laennac which was present in the market some time ago as well as Lipostabil 303 Forte.


Meanwhile, the lay person who has no medical background does not know any better. And because of this, they are being taken advantage of. (No one has the time to send the products to a lab to have the contents of these injectables checked and furthermore Malaysians are very trusting of silver-tongued sales people who sometimes genuinely do not know that the products they carry in their inventory are not even original!).


In the current market there are also products claiming to be of sheep placenta in origin but in actual fact they contain swine/porcine placenta.  Swine is an alternative word for porcine or pig or hog. Placenta compositum from Heel for example is a mixture of various placentas including swine/porcine placenta. There are also sheep placentas which are being marketed as fish placenta. The reason for not including this vital information is obvious.


There are various other issues in which we will write at another time specific to various products that may have surfaced recently ( such as Biome, Biome + DNA, Biocell, NC24, Cell Roma, Tranexamic Acid, Cell Revi, Oxydermal, Rodotex etc) so that users understand what they are getting themselves into & what the risks are of using such products. We shall also write regarding collagen fillers at a later date.