Dangerous lockdown hair clippers which pose ‘serious risk’ to users found by West Sussex Trading Standards

Dangerous ‘lockdown’ hair clippers have been found online by West Sussex Trading Standards officers.
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Following the closure of hairdressers and barbers, officers bought seven cheap hair clippers from online platforms and assessed them for safety.

Six failed safety assessments due to issues with the plug and posed a serious electric shock risk. Some were sold with a UK compatible plug but had issues with the fuse and pin size, a West Sussex Council Council spokeswoman said. The majority arrived with a two-pin EU style plug and a cheap travel adaptor so they could be used with UK sockets. These travel adaptors were found to be unsafe.

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The seventh was incorrectly labelled and had inadequate instructions.

Some of the clippers were sold with a UK compatible plug but had issues with the fuse and pin sizeSome of the clippers were sold with a UK compatible plug but had issues with the fuse and pin size
Some of the clippers were sold with a UK compatible plug but had issues with the fuse and pin size

All the products have been removed from the online platforms where they were being advertised.

Investigations are taking place into the products supplied by UK based sellers. Two of the sellers were companies based in China and had no UK presence.

Peter Aston, West Sussex Trading Standards team manager, said: “These products posed a serious risk of electric shock. It is illegal to supply a portable electrical product that is not fitted with a UK three pin plug.

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“A number of failures of similar products have been recorded across the UK and the EU over recent weeks and we have sent our results to the Office of Product Safety and Standards to feed into this process.”

Deborah Urquhart, West Sussex County Council Cabinet Member for Environment, added: “These are worrying results and anyone using these products would be at serious risk. I would urge residents to only buy from trusted, recognised brands when purchasing electrical products.”

Anyone who thinks they have been sold an unsafe product, should contact Trading Standards at www.westsussex.gov.uk/tsreport or via Citizens Advice on 03444 111 444.

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