Women's accessories, such as hats and sandals, sold on AliExpress, Temu and Shein, the biggest Chinese online retail platforms, have been found to contain toxic substances at up to 229 times higher than permitted levels, the Seoul city government said Wednesday. The city conducted safety examinations on 144 products sold on the three Chinese shopping apps from July 12 to Aug. 9 and found safety issues in 11 products. The examined products included 94 food containers, 13 makeup products, 28 sandals and hats, and nine sanitary products. The results show that two of the sandals contained phthalate plasticizers in amounts that exceeded permitted levels by 167.5 times and 229.2 times, respectively. Phthalate-based plasticizers are categorized as cancer-causing substances that carry the risk of causing infertility. Two sandals contained nickel, which could cause contact dermatitis, at two to nine times higher than permitted levels. In addition, three hats exceeded the permitted levels of formaldehyde by two times or reported a pH scale of 9.3, exceeding the pH value of between 4 and 9, which is set as the standard. Other cases include two aluminum pots, which contained two times the permitted levels of nickel, and two bottles of nail polish, which had over 3.6 times the permitted amount of dioxane and 1.4 times that of methanol. The city plans to request that the Chinese online platforms stop selling the 11 products with safety issues. A Seoul city official advised people to be especially cautious when purchasing sandals and hats as they come into direct contact with people's bodies. Source: Yonhap News Agency