I’ve noticed a lot more Aliexpress reselling going on recently and it has me kind of worried as 99% of said re-sellers don’t mention that they’re re-sellers (well duh! Why would they tell you that when you could just quite easily then go buy that £30 crop for £2.50 with free shipping?), and more importantly what said items are made from.
I did have a big post written out, but then I found this and it’s better written and more detailed so why invent the wheel?
TL;dr please make damn sure you know what you’re putting in your body.
That’s not to say everything on Aliexpress/Wish/DHGate/Taobao/ etc should be treated as toxic waste, external use items can be ok (avoid make up though as it often contains chemicals and scary amounts of lead that are banned in the UK and if you’re against animal testing it’s worth noting that by law in China all make up made and sold over there has to be tested on animals, therefore make up sold on sites like these will have been animal tested), although they don’t often last as long as they tend to be mass produced in large productions with the cheapest available materials (well they have to be at that price) rather than in small batches.