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The Crazy Things Cosmetics
Salespeople SayBy Paula
Begoun |
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Apart from the
world of advertising mumbo jumbo, there is an entire realm of
appallingly inaccurate or just plain wrong information that is
disseminated on a daily basis by cosmetics salespeople all
over the world. These false sales pitches are tomorrow's new
myths, ingrained into the minds of a captive audience. Here
are my latest favorites, though I have to admit these only
skim the surface.
"Lavender is the most widely used and
safest essential oil for sensitive skin. It does not cause
irritation! I'm overwhelmed when people say things like that;
they need to do their research."
Lavender is
indeed a commonly used essential oil, but it is by no means
the safest one for sensitive skin. For someone with sensitive
skin, it is best to avoid essential oils completely because of
their volatile nature, not to mention the many fragrant
compounds in them. However, lavender oil rarely causes contact
dermatitis (Source: Natural Medicines Comprehensive
Database, Fourth Edition, 2002, page 795; and Contact
Dermatitis, volume 43, issue 3, September 2000, page 157),
but that does not mean its use should be green-lighted for
someone with sensitive skin. Lavender oil contains more than
100 components, including linalool, camphor, and limonene, and
is used primarily as a fragrance ingredient in cosmetic
products (Source: Encyclopedia of Common Natural
Ingredients, Second Edition, 1996, pages 339–340). There
is no definitive research to show that lavender extract or
lavender oil have any benefit for the skin (Sources:
Phytotherapy Research, June 2002, pages 301–308; and
Healthnotes Review of Complementary and Integrative Medicine,
www.healthwell.com/healthnotes/Herb/), yet there is research
proving lavender to be a skin sensitizer (Source: Cell
Proliferation, volume 37, issue 3, June 2004, page 221).
Many people find lavender's aroma pleasant, which is why
inhalation, not topical application, is how this plant is best
enjoyed.
"Vitamin C is
not an antioxidant, but it contains amino
acids."
This statement was from a saleswoman who
was trying to explain the differences between vitamin E and
vitamin C skin-care products. Her comment is nothing less than
silly. Vitamin C in any form is not an amino acid. There are
only 20 amino acids, all protein-building substances, of which
10 are called "essential" for humans to consume in their
diets, since the body cannot manufacture them on its own
(Source: Oxford Dictionary of Chemistry, Third Edition,
1996, pages 30–32). In its natural form, vitamin C is ascorbic
acid, and is most definitely and notably an antioxidant, not a
protein (Sources: Advances in Experimental Medicine and
Biology, 2002, number 505, pages 113–122; and Journal
of Investigative Dermatology, February 2002, pages
372–379). Vitamin C is a worthy ingredient to look for in
leave-on skin-care products such as moisturizers and toners
because, when used in its stable form (watch for ingredients
like magnesium ascorbyl phosphate and tetrahexyldecyl
ascorbate), it can reduce the effects of free-radical damage
(Source: Journal of the American Academy of
Dermatology, June 2003, pages 866–874). I suspect the
saleswoman I spoke with may have been confusing ascorbic acid
with aspartic acid, which is a nonessential amino acid.
"[Our] product has tiny
little micro pearls in it. This is the first time ever that we
used isoflavones. Our labs studied the algae that washed up
from the ocean. In one to five hours, these little micro
pearls and the evaporation of the moisture off your skin go
into the tiny little fine lines to help decrease the depth of
the lines.”
Algae, in its hundreds of varying
forms, are well-known ingredients and have been around for a
long time. It’s true that many algae have antioxidant
properties (Sources: Journal of Agricultural Food
Chemistry, February 2002, pages 840–845; and Annals of
the New York Academy of Sciences, 2004, pages 219–222),
but lots of other ingredients do as well. The “tiny little
micro pearls” the salesperson mentioned are nothing more than
particles of mica, a shiny rock that when powdered gives the
product a soft shimmer on skin. It’s nice, but not exotic!
Finally, isoflavones are plant estrogens with potent
antioxidant properties (Source: Free Radical Biology and
Medicine, December 2001, pages 1570–1581). However, the
amount of isoflavones in these Clarins products is too
minuscule to parlay much, if any, antioxidant benefit to skin.
"You have nighttime free
radicals and daytime free radicals. Daytime free radicals are
the sun and pollution, the nighttime free radicals are, um,
I’m really not sure what those little boogers, the little
nighttime pesticides, are that damage your skin at night, but
they are there!"
Free radicals are destructive
molecules that cannot tell time! Yes, it is true that sunlight
is a major source of free radicals generated in the daytime,
yet pollution, whether coming from auto exhaust or industrial
pollutants, is ever-present. The level of pollutants may be
higher during daylight hours, but it certainly doesn’t
disappear when the sun goes down! And what about the fact that
the oxygen we need to live is a potent source of free-radical
damage, and that’s around all the time, too?
I don’t
know what to make of the “nighttime pesticides” comment, but
unless you are sleeping in a field or on farmland that has
recently been crop-dusted, I wouldn’t be too concerned about
pesticides on your skin at night.
Regardless of
whether it's day or night, antioxidants are state-of-the-art
ingredients to look for when shopping for skin-care products,
and there are dozens available (with no clear-cut "best"
choice among them), but none of them can distinguish between
daytime and nighttime free radicals. In theory, antioxidants
in well-formulated skin-care products should perform
regardless of the time of day.
"Reading the ingredient list won’t
really tell you about the product; it's all about how the
ingredients react to your skin."
I couldn’t
disagree more. The ingredient list is the only part of
the product's copy that you can and should rely on because it
is the only part of a cosmetics label that is regulated by the
FDA (Source: www.fda.gov). It's true that knowing how to
decipher an ingredient list is difficult, but even if you know
how it doesn’t tell you exactly what percentage of each
ingredient was used to create the formula; it is a far more
reliable source of information than the product's description
and claims. Yes, the way the ingredients react on the skin is
also important, but if a product has lackluster or irritating
ingredients, or only minuscule amounts of helpful ingredients,
then it is a waste of money, plain and simple. In contrast, an
elegant product loaded with ingredients that can make skin
look, feel, and function better will in all likelihood cause a
noticeable improvement, and that has everything to do with
what ingredients the product contains and how they react on
your skin!
"In order for
the products to achieve dramatic results you must use all of
them; the skin must be properly conditioned to accept all the
products in the line in order for any of the products to
work."
This is one of my all-time favorites
because its purpose is to convince you to buy all the products
from one line. It is a classic sales technique. In essence,
what you are being told is that the line's wrinkle cream won’t
work unless all the other products are used first, so don't
bother buying the wrinkle cream unless you are going to buy
everything. In my years of reviewing skin-care routines, I
have never seen a cosmetics line with products so unique that
you couldn't substitute a dozen other products for them, if
not many that would work better. Further, every cosmetics line
has products you should avoid because they contain irritating
ingredients, or inadequate amounts of sunscreen, or
moisturizers that oversaturate the skin. The term to note here
is "dramatic results." What the cosmetics company considers
dramatic results may be dramatically different from what you
would really like to see the products do—even if you do use
all of them.
"Our
ingredients are high quality; that's why they are so
expensive."
It would be nice if that were true,
but I can't get any cosmetics company to give me proof of it.
I've asked for the names of their suppliers to find out what
grades of products they are selling and if they have inferior
grades that go to some companies but not others. From what
I've been able to find out on my own after talking to several
cosmetic-ingredient manufacturers, the grades of cosmetic
ingredients don't vary that much, and everyone buys
cosmetic-grade ingredients, which are all high quality. For
example, DuPont is one of the largest suppliers of glycolic
acid to the cosmetics industry (they supply over 99% of the
industry who use this ingredient), and they supply the same
version to everyone.
"We
only use natural ingredients; synthetic ingredients are bad
for your skin because they are fake and made from gasoline,
such as mineral oil and petrolatum."
I have yet
to see any cosmetic that is "all" natural. Some synthetic
ingredients are awesome for your skin, and regardless of the
protestations of cosmetics companies to the contrary, every
cosmetics product in the world contains its share of synthetic
ingredients.
Synthetic ingredients are derived from
many sources, but they all start as natural because everything
comes from our environment; nothing is created via alchemy.
Petrolatum and mineral oil are indeed by-products of the
gasoline industry, but what is unnatural about that?
Ironically, gasoline, which is derived from crude oil, is
decidedly natural in and of itself as it comes from organic
material, such as tiny aquatic plants and animals, that has
been buried in the earth for millions of years. Petrolatum and
mineral oil are remarkably good skin-care ingredients; they
are also recognized by cosmetics chemists the world over for
being superior emollients and completely harmless (Source:
Dermatologic Surgery, June 1998, pages 661–664). Even
the claim that these ingredients are occlusive (blocking) and,
therefore, bad for skin is also without proof (Source:
Contact Dermatitis, September 1996, pages 163–168).
Why mineral oil and petrolatum continue to get a bad
rap from the so-called natural skin-care world is a mystery.
For dry skin, you'd be far better off having petrolatum or
mineral oil in your moisturizer than most plant extracts any
day.
"A famous scientist
[doctor, chemist, pharmacist, dermatologist, or whatever—I've
heard it all] created this formula and it is only now
available to the public."
Lots of doctors and
chemists are involved in creating all kinds of products in the
world of cosmetics, but all cosmetics contain standard
cosmetic ingredients. They can't contain anything else, as
drugs do, or they would be regulated quite differently.
My favorite example of this type of claim is Estee
Lauder Creme de la Mer. Quite a story accompanies this very
costly little cream ($165 for 2 ounces)! It was created
by Max Huber, a NASA aerospace physicist, supposedly to take
care of burns he received in an accident. He sold and marketed
this product himself. After his death, his daughter continued
selling the cream until recently, when Estee Lauder purchased
the rights to manufacture and distribute it.
The
reality is that this very basic, and I mean really
basic, cream doesn't contain anything particularly
extraordinary or unique, unless you want to believe that
seaweed extract (sort of like seaweed tea) can somehow be
worth this much money, or that it can in some way heal burns
and scars. According to Susan Brawley, professor of plant
biology at the University of Maine, "seaweed extract isn't a
rare, exotic, or expensive ingredient. Seaweed extract is
readily available and used in everything from cosmetics to
food products and medical applications." Creme de la Mer
contains mostly seaweed extract, mineral oil, petrolatum
(similar to Vaseline), glycerin, waxlike thickening agents,
plant oils, plant seeds, minerals, vitamins, more thickeners,
and preservatives. How expensive can it be to stick some
seaweed and vitamins in a cosmetic? According to the cosmetics
chemists I've interviewed, it costs pennies, not hundreds of
dollars.
Moreover, several additional products with
formulas that are unrelated to the first now accompany Creme
de la Mer's original miracle product. If the first one was so
spectacular why did it need company, and why did the
subsequent products have completely different formulations? I
guess the original wasn't quite the miracle formula they
thought it was.
"This
moisturizer is perfect for someone with oily or combination
skin because it is oil-free."
I can't tell you
the number of products touting this claim when they indeed do
contain oils, or waxes that feel oily, or other ingredients
that can clog pores. They may not be oils you recognize, like
plant oils or mineral oils, but they are nonetheless in there,
with names you may not have heard. Regardless, hearing that a
product is oil-free still gives you no information about what
it may or may not do to the skin. What is most confusing is
that ingredients known for causing breakouts may not leave a
greasy feel on the skin. Surprisingly, one of the greasiest
ingredients, mineral oil, has been shown in study after study
to not cause breakouts, although it can still feel greasy. Go
figure. The fewer skin-care products a woman with oily or
blemish-prone skin uses, the better off her skin will be.
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