The green movement has brought us cool things like Goji berry, acai, green tea, coffeeberry… the list goes on and on. But now nature’s dark underbelly is yielding up a whole new generation of skincare products with ingredients that boggle the imagination. Cow’s colostrum, anyone?
In a crowded field, beauty companies are doing anything to break away from the pack. Now that every fruit, nut, berry and mineral has been spoken for, they’re raiding the animal kingdom to come up with The Next Big Thing. This is called a “unique selling proposition.”
Unique? That’s putting it mildly. Consider Syence Skon Care Laboratories’ Skin Venom Memory Cream. (Why would anyone want to remember a thing like that?) It boasts something called Synake, which is a snake venom peptide that supposedly mimics Botox. Our faces are already frozen in horror. Then there’s Profael Specialty Skins Nourishment, which fights wrinkles with natural bee mucus extract. Thanks, but we’d rather keep our crow’s feet. (Actually, we’re just waiting for crow’s feet to pop up in one of these formulations.)
But wait, there’s more: Bonnie Baba de Caracol Crema Humectante para Manos y Cuerpo (Moisturizing Cream) contains extract of purified snail slime. We’ll take a pass. There’s even a spa in New York, which shall remain nameless, that offers purified bird poop facials.
From the deep blue sea, shark oil, shark egg white squalane, squid ink and extract of cuttlefish are taking a star turn in moisturizers. Even we humans excrete potent anti-aging ingredients. Spermine, the active ingredient in Skinscience Spermine from Bioforskning, is a small crystal extracted from seminal fluid. We don’t even want to think about how that is sourced. And then there’s EMK Placental Anti-Aging Serum, which needs no explanation.
Just when we thought things couldn’t get any more insane, these products are being marketed as never having been tested on animals. So when friends ask us why we’re covered in slime, we can silence them by saying it’s cruelty-free!
Has the beauty industry temporarily taken leave of its senses, or does this trend have legs? We think a force has been unleashed that will compel beauty companies to keep upping the ante. As the saying goes, once the horse is out of the barn… just pray they don’t use it for body parts.
