Screenshot of the hot-selling blood pendants. Photo: Sina Weibo

Hot-selling blood pendants have drawn controversy on Chinese social media for encouraging buyers to make gifts for loved ones by using their own blood. Some of the products have already been removed from China's e-commerce platforms. 

According to an instruction video posted by a Taobao seller, buyers must prick their fingers with a needle, squeezing out the blood and dropping it into a hollow glass pendant about 20 centimetres in width and length. 

A blood pendant made by a lover can "ward off bad luck and evil spirits" for the person who receives the gift, reads the description of the product. 

The product is a bestseller on Taobao with more than 1,000 deals per month, and some top sellers have sold 4,000. 

Most of the product's buyers are women, many of whom posted pictures displaying the finished pendant in their hands, with one or several fingertips mostly covered with band-aids. 

In some pictures, there is also tissue paper, needles and other items that are stained with blood, with no alcohol or other disinfection products seen around.

"Why on earth are you doing this?" one Taobao user asked a buyer who said she had pricked all five fingers on one hand to get enough blood.

"Simply for love," replied the buyer.  

The extreme gift drew a huge wave of criticism that sellers were inciting buyers to self-harm and that buyers were "blinded by love." Some people also expressed concerns over possible hygiene problems caused by a lack of disinfection while drawing blood. 

"Breaking the skin itself poses the risk of infection. There may also be infection from one another through blood if multiple people use the appliances together," Wang Xifu, a physician at the emergency department at Guangzhou First People's Hospital, told media. 

Global Times