Ancient Chinese Beauty Secret

I've not been around much, busy as I've been with the new kittens. But I am back, and this, from Antonius at Boring Diatribe, is worthy of note:

A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe.

And this from the whole story in the Guardian:

With European regulations to control cosmetic treatments such as collagen not expected for several years, doctors and politicians say the discovery highlights the dangers faced by the increasing number of Britons seeking to improve their looks. Apart from the ethical concerns, there is also the potential risk of infection.

Sadly, there are entirely too many people for whom the risk of infection is a larger worry than their looks profiting from state executions in a repressive regime. However, those people probably won't let the risk of infection stop them, either. Perhaps they weren't able to cut that picture-in-the-attic deal of Dorian Gray's.