"I will never use an SK-II product again," said Hu, "and I will never be duped by those exaggerating advertisements."

According to public relations experts, the company's poor handling of the trouble could overshadow the test results themselves.

"It is an international norm that, when facing a brand crisis, the company should first face up to the facts positively," Cheng Shi'an, dean of the Advertising Department of Fudan University, was quoted as saying in Shanghai-based Orient Morning Post.

"But P&G is doing the opposite. The company, at the very beginning, rejected a fact already confirmed by the country's quality authority. But they could not provide further evidence during the following days to prove itself on the issue," according to Cheng. "Meanwhile, the company has set obstacles in the refunding process. It is obviously not a goodwill decision as the company has claimed."

An ongoing poll by Sina.com, one of the country's most popular websites, shows that 98.8 per cent of 143,774 respondents say they will never buy SK-II products again.

Many customers also blamed the country's quality inspection authorities for their dereliction of duty.

"I read that the brand hasn't been inspected for eight years since its entrance into the Chinese market in 1998. If that is true, it would be a great mistake made by the country's quality authorities," said Li Ying, a 31-year-old journalist who used to be a fan of SK-II products.

Some experts also say there are defects in the inspection system.

The country only looks for heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead in cosmetics, Yan Shixiang, an expert with the cosmetics commission under the All-China Federation of Industry of Commerce, was quoted as saying by the Beijing-based newspaper China Business.

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