Some news makes you angry. Some news makes you check your bathroom cabinet. On Wednesday, Reuters did the second kind. * Here's what Reuters says it found. More than 20 skin-bleaching creams and soaps from regulators' banned lists were on sale on Amazon, Temu and TikTok Shop. These are products that health officials have flagged for mercury. Mercury can damage your kidneys, brain and nerves. More than 150 countries are part of a 2013 treaty that bans mercury in products like these. * Then the reporters did the part most of us would skip. They didn't just take screenshots. A Reuters journalist in London and another in New York actually bought the stuff. That's the difference between "we saw an ad" and "it arrived at our door." * They also caught a sneaky trick. One seller on Amazon's Indian site had renamed a banned cream "Beauty Brightening Cream" and blurred the real name in the photo. It's a banned driver popping on a fake moustache and climbing back behind the wheel. * Why should you care? Because these creams sell on price. Reuters found them for about $6.50 an ounce. A 2021 study put legal alternatives at around $25. So the people most likely to end up with the dodgy jar are the people counting every dollar. The creams are especially popular in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, Reuters notes. * The big platforms got their say, too. Amazon, Temu and TikTok all told Reuters they ban these products and are removing them. The story then adds, calmly, that as of September 1 most of them were still listed. No shouting needed. * And here's the bit we liked most. Reuters says straight out that it could not test the products for mercury itself. It leaned on the regulators' lists and said so. No overselling, no scary lab-coat photo. * Two weeks ago we gave Reuters a nod for plain words about Amazon's alleged ad scheme. This time it went further and did the shopping. * One useful thing to take away: if anyone at home uses a skin-lightening cream bought online, check the name against the FDA's warning list. A news story that sends you to your bathroom cabinet has done its job.