Anti-Ageing & Skin Care Products

[Anonymous]

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10479286%255E13762,00.html

Shark bile the next skin care star
August 18, 2004

A PRODUCT developed from shark bile by a Melbourne scientist has been picked up by one of the world's top cosmetic companies.

The product - called Ketsugo - helps control acne and restores the normal balance to oily skin.

Scientists at RMIT discovered the compound after hearing about Chinese women who smear shark bile on their faces to keep them wrinkle-free.

They analysed the compound and found that it switched off the excessive oil production activated by the body's hormones.

RMIT natural products research group head, Professor Theo Macrides, said the breakthrough came straight from Japanese and Chinese folklore.

"The fishermen gave the shark bile to women who used it on their faces for a smoother complexion," he said.

"For centuries the Japanese and Chinese used a preparation known as deep-sea shark liver oil, a source of shark bile."

Professor Macrides said it was also used to treat scalds, burns and other skin problems.

Scientists have tested Ketsugo on 40 men and women in their late 20s who suffered from severe oily skin.

About 85 per cent of the group had skin within the normal oiliness range after using Ketsugo for three weeks.

Follow-up tests at St Thomas Hospital in London found the compound could help cure facial acne.

Ketsugo has now been launched as a "secret" ingredient in an exclusive skincare range.

Professor Macrides said Ketsugo did not dry the skin because it affected only excess, not normal, oil production.

 

[Leaferne]

Part of me is saying "Send over a vat" but mostly I just hope they come up with a synthetic alternative...and fast.

 

[rynner2]

Perhaps you'd prefer this, Leafy:

Sold out: the £17 anti-ageing wonder cream
By Martin Beckford
Last Updated: 1:50am BST 31/03/2007

Shoppers are clearing the shelves of a Boots anti-ageing cream after scientists claimed it does actually reduce wrinkles.

Sales of No7 Protect & Perfect Beauty Serum, which costs £16.75, have soared by almost 2,000 per cent since it was praised on the BBC2 science programme Horizon earlier this week, with 13 bottles being sold every minute.

Many of Boots' high street stores have sold out of the cream, as has its online shop. Some desperate consumers are paying as much as £25 for a bottle on the internet auction site eBay.

Ian Filby, the director of beauty products at Boots, said: "We have been overwhelmed with the response following BBC's Horizon, with women literally racing each other to get hold of the last product in stores.

"We are getting more stock out to our stores on an hourly basis to manage demand."

The programme that sparked so much interest in the product saw gynaecology professor Lesley Regan, 50, subject Britain's £6.2 billion cosmetics industry to scientific scrutiny.

She wanted to see if the claims made on behalf of products that claim to reverse premature ageing caused by the sun are justified, and asked experts at the University of Manchester to compare the effects of the Boots cream with prescription-only Tretinoin, often used to treat acne.

The scientists were surprised to see the Boots cream began to repair damage to the skin structure of volunteers who tried it, and found measurable improvements in wrinkle depth.

Professor Chris Griffiths, the university's foundation professor of dermatology, said: "At both basic science and clinical levels, Boots No7 Protect & Perfect has been shown scientifically to repair photo-aged skin and improve the fine wrinkles associated with photo-ageing."

The ingredients of the Boots cream, said to make skin look younger in four weeks, include silicone as well as vitamin C, mulberry, ginseng, an product derived from amino acids and an extract from the white lupin flower.

http://tinyurl.com/yu2bk4

 

[rynner2]

More on the wonder cream:

Why girls love Steve
By Olga Craig, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:56pm BST 07/04/

This Nottingham chemist can fairly claim to be the hottest male property in Britain right now. Women have gone potty for his anti-ageing skin cream, which sells on the high street for just £16.75, and which scientists say really works. The only problem is, you'll have to find it first. Olga Craig reports

In the end it was an unlikely, some would say pedestrian, place in which to find the long-sought-after Holy Grail. Its birthplace, it turns out, is none other than a vast, 26-acre industrial site in Beeston, four miles outside Nottingham. It was there, amid the phials and microscopes of his slightly cramped laboratory, that scientist Steve Barton came up with the formula for which the world has long waited: a potion that promises to hold back time.

Ever since Cleopatra immersed herself in a bath of asses' milk, convinced its properties could retain her youthful complexion and fend off the ravages of age, we have been obsessed with finding the ultimate elixir of youth. Millions of women and an awful lot of men have filled the coffers of the anti-ageing cosmetic makers, desperate to stave off sun damage, pollution and, most of all, time.

Money has been no object in our relentless quest. Annually, the industry world-wide is worth £25 billion. And, in the past year, three million Britons aged between 35 and 60 have used an anti-ageing product at least once a week, spending £210 million for the privilege. In all, we spend £544 million each year on skin care, in the hope that, in our increasingly youth-obsessed culture, we can stay forever young.

Now, the answer has been found. Not, as one might have thought, from inside the jewel-encrusted, cut-crystal container of one of the world's leading crème-de-la-crème cosmetics manufacturers in Paris or Milan, but from a British boffin who works for Boots, our leading high-street pharmacy chain which churns out one million pots of cosmetics each day.

Last week, after the BBC2 science series Horizon's March 27 programme investigated the increasingly outrageous claims on the jars of the elite cosmetics houses, its conclusion was that, yes, indeed, there was one across-the-counter anti-ageing product that did what it says it would. What happened next was phenomenal. Twenty four hours after the programme was aired there was not a single £16.75, 30ml jar of Boots No7 Protect & Perfect serum to be found in Britain. Sales had increased by 2,000 per cent overnight, stores had amassed waiting lists running into four figures, the company's web store had 4,000 requests in an evening and thousands of pleas from the US, and single jars of the serum were changing hands for £100 on eBay.

"We had crowds of women charging behind the counters, convinced our sales staff had a secret stash stored there,'' says Geraldine Waterson, the No7 product developer. ''We had women threatening to practically lynch anyone who got more than one and, from John O'Groats to Land's End, we had queues snaking down the high streets. We knew women would want it, we just wildly under-estimated how many. We had shipped 21 weeks' supplies into the stores the night before. All were gone in a day, at a rate of one jar every 10 seconds. Now it will be a fortnight before we can meet the demand."

Mr Barton, who heads the 20-strong team which perfected the serum, is quietly proud of his very British success. And yes, he uses it himself. "I've been using sun screen and moisturiser for years and I've been using Protect & Perfect now for three years," he says. And certainly, his soft, relatively unlined 56-year-old skin certainly suggests it. What he hadn't been able to do until six months ago, however, was to convince his wife, Julia, to give it a go. "She was the typically sceptical wife," he laughs. "But I persuaded her."

So how, then, has Mr Barton succeeded where his continental cousins, the "haute couture" of the cosmetics industry, have failed? How has he perfected a potion that reduces wrinkles and helps reverse the effects of sun damage: one that doesn't need a tightly regulated doctor's prescription?

It was 10 years ago that he and the company first began working on skin-care products. They were encouraged with their research into the effects of vitamin A and AHA (Alpha Hydroxy Acids). Then, in 2000, along with Boots's then sister company in Paris, Barton became increasingly enthusiastic about the results of tests of peptides, compounds of two or more amino acids, on sun-damaged and wrinkled skin. Before working for Boots he had spent 12 years researching the effects of disease on skin with the eminent Cardiff professor, Ronnie Marks.

"Then, if I had read the claims we make for Protect & Perfect, I would have thought: how could that work, I don't see how it does,'' he says. "Now I know very differently. I decided to make a base serum and added peptins. We did trials on 100 women in 2003 and the results were fantastic. By February 2004 the product was on the market."

While women loved the serum - which contains silicone, antioxidants and lipo-pentapeptide, created from amino acids grown in the laboratory, as well as an extract of white lupin flower - it wasn't a runaway seller: rather it became one of those "best-kept beauty-bag secrets" that women are inclined to keep to themselves. During his work, however, Barton had asked Chris Griffiths, Foundation Professor of Dermatology at Manchester University, to run some tests on his product.

The professor, an acknowledged expert in the field, had long held the belief that no over-the-counter product could match the effectiveness of Tretinoid, a prescription-only drug used to treat acne and severe sun damage to skin. "When Dr Griffiths called me to say, yes, this does what you claim, I whooped with delight. I knew it did. But that extra endorsement was wonderful news."

Had it not been for Horizon, however, the serum might have remained just one more beauty product that sold well. When the programme approached Prof Griffiths he told them that, astonishingly, he knew of one cosmetic product that worked: Protect & Preserve. "In my clinical trials," he said, "it has been shown scientifically to repair photo-aged skin and improve the wrinkles associated with photo-aged skin. To my surprise, the Boots cream stimulated the production of fibrillin [a protein associated with the creation of elastin and collagen], the skin's equivalent of the springs found in a mattress.''

Needless to say, Barton's exact "recipe" is secret. "But it isn't the existence of a magic ingredient," he insists, "it's the whole product. And let's be honest here: this is not a miracle cream. It's not plastic surgery. It will, however, reduce lines and reveal younger looking skin. It does what we tell you it will do: it makes you look the best you possibly can for the age you are."

While Barton is justifiably pleased, there are many toiling in the laboratories of the premium brands who most decidedly are not. In January this year Consumer Report, the American version of Which?, debunked much of the myth behind the anti-ageing creams at the top end of the market. It tested 10 brand leaders over 10 weeks, measuring wrinkle depth and sun damage and concluded then that Olay Regenerist, costing just £16 for 30ml, achieved marginally better results than its more expensive rivals. The La Prairie Cellular range, costing up to £229 for a 30ml pot, was found to be one of the least effective, as was StriVectin-SD, costing £67 for a 6oz tube.

Part of the problem for the industry is that wrinkles are much like scar tissue: once they've formed, as a result of non-elastic skin being stretched and then hardening into furrows, they can only be removed by surgery. ''And the problem is that creams that are strong enough to make a difference,'' says Michelle Irving, the director of Cheshire Image Clinic in Chester, "are also likely to have side effects. Companies cannot take the risk that their products will cause reddening or irritation and so they sell products with low levels of active ingredients."

What has always worked in favour of the top-range companies, however, is simple human psychology. Seduced by sales pitches that tell us to buy ''because you're worth it'', most of us have been led to believe the most expensive will be the most effective. ''There is another reason that we reach for the elegantly packaged, up-market brand," says Sandra Gibbons, a psychologist. "What woman, when a friend asks to use her lavatory, isn't pleased that she has left her expensive pot of Crème de la Mer on the shelf for all to see. There is an element of snobbery involved. But what has worked in No 7's favour is that it is seen as a trusted yet sensibly priced range."

This month marks the launch of yet another top-of-the-range anti-ageing product. Re Peau Magnifique, costing £1,050 for one month's supply, will soon be on sale at Space NK. Created by Dr Gregory Bays Brown, a former plastic surgeon in America, it claims to reset the skin's ageing clock by five years and to have the power to reduce wrinkles by 45 per cent.

Steve Barton, ever the gallant British gentleman, will not be drawn on another's claims. He remains loyal to his own serum - and he is the one with the scientific endorsement. And anyway, he has work to do. Right now he is in the final stages of testing his newest product. "It's a secret," he says. "We know what works now. We've perfected it for the face. Now we are working on one for, um, let's say, other parts of the body. Not another word." :shock: Whatever it is, it will be launched in October. This time, one supposes, Boots will be braced for the onslaught.

http://tinyurl.com/2z3v6o

 

[rynner2]

Serum to tackle age-old problem is here. Prepare for mayhem

· Boots expects scramble for 'miracle' cure for wrinkles
· Cream finally back in stock after supplies ran out

Julia Finch
Thursday May 3, 2007
The Guardian

First there were the Anya Hindmarch shopping bags to save the environment, then the Kate Moss signature range at Top Shop to acquire supermodel style. Now consumers have an even better reason to form a disorderly queue around Britain's high streets as another must-have product goes on sale: a lotion to beat old age.
This time the shopping scramble will be for a face cream launched four years ago. Boots is expecting a frantic rush tomorrow morning for its No 7 Protect and Perfect anti-wrinkle serum. Stores in London, Nottingham, Manchester and Edinburgh are opening before breakfast so shoppers past the first flush of youth can start fighting their wrinkles first thing.

In a process planned like a military exercise 200,000 bottles of the potion have been shipped into stores. Supplies are to be rationed at one bottle per customer as Boots tries to prevent "flipping" - where savvy consumers snap up stocks to turn a quick profit by selling them on eBay.
The huge demand was prompted by a Horizon programme, screened on BBC2 in March, which concluded that Protect and Perfect does what it says on the tin.

If, indeed, it does roll back the years, Boots is on to a big winner with its £16.75 lotion. For the £6bn cosmetics industry wrinkle reduction is the holy grail. Customers, almost all female, are prepared to part with serious money for a cream that works. La Prairie Skin Caviar, for instance, costs up to £340, a price that might by itself prompt the emergence of a few frown lines.

Word spread fast about Protect and Perfect - and shoppers cleared the shelves. Boots, which usually sold just 1,000 pots of the lotion a week, knocked out 60,000 in the 10 days after the Horizon programme and stocks ran out.

Unseemly scenes were witnessed in some branches as women desperate to get their hands on the serum tried to search stock cupboards. Orders came in from the US and Australia.

The 30ml bottles started changing hands on eBay for up to £100. Boots stopped production of other creams to divert capacity to Protect and Perfect and more than 100,000 women have since joined a waiting list to be first in the queue for the cream. Yesterday Boots said it was in the process of notifying them that the wonder stuff was back. A £2m advertising campaign is also planned. Graham Hardy, head of customer care at Boots, said: "We've heard many stories as to why women should be top of the list to receive the serum, including 'It's my son's wedding in three months' time'.

"Most women don't even know the name of the serum, simply referring it as the miracle cream, vanishing cream or simply as 'that cream'."

Boots' wrinkle-buster is Steve Barton, a biologist who spent 12 years in dermatological research before joining the chain as a scientific adviser 17 years ago. Mr Barton, who develops new skincare products in labs at the headquarters in Beeston, Nottingham, asked an acknowledged dermatology expert, Professor Chris Griffiths of Manchester University, to test his serum and admits he "whooped with delight" when the professor called to say his results were positive. It was the professor who told the Horizon investigator, Lesley Regan, a 50-year old gynaecology professor, of Boots's secret success.

Mr Barton, however, said he already knew it worked - not just as a result of his own consumer tests but because the 56-year-old is himself a devotee. "Yes, I use it," he said, "to keep my skin in good condition rather than to keep wrinkles away. But my wrinkles are probably better than they would be if I didn't use it."

The serum, he said, has no magic ingredient. "It is just a combination of products," he added. Skin ageing, mostly caused by the effects of sun, he explained, is a result of damage between the epidermis and the dermis caused when a protein called fibrillin disappears. The only surefire way of reducing that damage, is a cream called tretinoin, a type of vitamin A, which is available only on prescription and is used by dermatologists in the US.

The lotion, which takes 4-8 weeks to work, has similar effects, said Mr Barton. "Wrinkles won't disappear. This is not botox, but they are significantly improved."

He admits to being "taken aback" by the frenzied reaction of shoppers to the Horizon programme. However, there will be no big bonus for coming up with the fastest selling product in Boots's history.

Yesterday the chief executive, Richard Baker, said his scientific adviser was now so popular with women "he probably feels like Tom Jones". As for a reward? "He's just very pleased with the recognition he has received," said Mr Baker.

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/wel ... 62,00.html

 

[rynner2]

Yep! Queues at 5 a.m!
http://www.mediaplayer.telegraph.co.uk/ ... DB737DE463

 

[escargot]

I popped into Boots yesterday to see if it was true that there was none left. I didn't see any, and as I left, laughing, the alarms went off. :lol:

 

[rynner2]

Now here's an idea!

Supermarket stampede as women slap £2.49 baby 'bottom butter' on their faces
By JAMES TOZER
Last updated at 00:22am on 19th April 2008

Supermarket staff were mystified when a cream for baby's bottom began selling like hot cakes.

Then they discovered the reason - mums were putting it on their own faces. :shock:

At £2.49 a pot, Waitrose's own-label Baby Bottom Butter is only a fraction of the cost of designer products.

And its new-found fans claim it is the answer to their prayers.

The buying frenzy began after it was given glowing endorsements on parenting websites.

One contributor to mumsnet.com wrote: "I can't even remember what made me put it on my face one day but OMG - it is fab.

"I have been using it constantly for 2 weeks now and my skin now has the smoothest texture, which I don't think it's had since prepubescence.

"And it makes my foundation look super dewy and youthful too. It is SO much better than all the expensive face creams I have tried - including Creme de la Mer."

While some complained that it left their skin spotty or greasy, another mum gushed: "I have taken to putting it on twice a day, I am eighteen again!"

And a third added: "Really really impressed with how plumped and smooth it makes my skin look, especially around the eyes".

The butter is free from artificial chemicals and contains olive oil, camomile - for nappy rash - and lavender.

Waitrose says it has seen sales of "natural" baby toiletries rise by 38 per cent after it removed parabens, petrochemicals and colours from its own-label products.

Sales of Baby Bottom Butter doubled to around 30,000 tubs in the first part of this year, taking its Hampshire-based supplier by surprise and leading to shortages on the shelves.

However, women keen to try it have been assured that new stock should be on sale from Monday.

Waitrose's baby care buyer Jo Maclaine said: "It seems that the botty butter gives softer cheeks wherever they are.

"The feedback we have had has been amazing and proof that looking good does not have to cost the Earth."

Of course it is not the first time an unlikely item becoming the new musthave beauty product.

Haemorrhoid ointment has also been championed as face cream by the likes of actress Sandra Bullock. :shock:

However cosmetic surgery expert Dr Patrick Bowler, who appeared on the TV programme Ten Years Younger, said he was sceptical about the supposed benefits of Baby Bottom Butter.

"The women buying this may think it will make their faces as smooth as a baby's bottom, but the truth is that while it's likely to be quite a good moisturiser there's really nothing extraordinary about it.

"And if they're buying it because they have babies, they're likely to be quite young themselves, which means they'll have pretty good skin anyway."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1770

 

[rynner2]

And another idea...

Sun lotion 'better than expensive face cream'
By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:53am BST 23/04/2008

The best anti-ageing product is suncream, scientists have claimed.

Prof Chris Griffiths said that although sophisticated skincare products could help turn back time, he would advise those worried about the visible effects of ageing to wear suncream.

He also warned that women could be harming their skin by using different anti-ageing creams because the side effects of combining them had not been tested properly.

Prof Griffiths said: "The majority of anti-ageing skin products are actually aimed at the effects of sun exposure, not how our body naturally ages. If I had to pick just one product it would be suncream."

Last year, Prof Griffiths, a dermatologist, at Manchester University, prompted hundreds of thousands of women to buy Boots' Protect and Perfect Beauty Serum by proving that it worked.

In May, Boots stores across the country ran out of the face cream after his research featured on the BBC2 programme Horizon.

Yesterday, at a press conference in London, Prof Griffiths said that for the majority, most visible signs of ageing, including wrinkles and crow's feet around the eyes, are caused by sun damage. Some of the most serious effects of growing older, such as deep wrinkles, would not happen until our 80s without sun damage, he said.

Prof Griffiths also warned that too little is known about the dangers of mixing different skin-care products because they are tested in isolation. Combining the ingredients of popular face creams could cause allergic reactions or dangerously increase the amount of a sensitive chemical, he said.

"All the ingredients [in these creams] have been tested individually. But, of course, what they don't test is what happens when people get out in the real world they use lots of different products together. There needs to be more tests on how they are really used and what the dangers could be."

Dr Christopher Flower, of the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association, which represents the skin-care industry, said that any problems of combining creams were filtered out in the pre-launch stage, when women were given the product to test in everyday conditions.

He added: "The worst that could happen, I suspect, is that you get a bit of a rash or an allergy and you think, 'I don't like that product' and do not buy it again."

The market for high-tech anti-wrinkle creams has doubled in the past five years to exceed £100?million. Research suggests that it could double again over the next five years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... ion123.xml

 

[rynner2]

And what about us blokes?

Men spend just £2.38 a year on skincare
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Wednesday, 21 May 2008

If the 21st century sounded the start of a new generation of metrosexual men with sensitive interiors and moisturised exteriors, the vast majority of British males were not listening.

Although sales of male skincare products have quadrupled in the past five years, the average man spends just £2.38 a year looking after his skin, according to a report by Mintel.

At £57m a year, the male skincare market was worth less than a tenth of the £602m women spent on skincare in 2007.

The report said the men's toiletries market was worth £806m, with the biggest share, 43 per cent, coming from aftershave. By contrast, women spent £3.3bn last year on toiletries.

When asked by Mintel, just 45 per cent of men under 65 thought using skincare products was acceptable, while a meagre 17 per cent of over-65s thought the same. Just 35 per cent of British men agreed that it was important to remain young-looking, compared to 55 per cent of Spaniards and Frenchmen.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 31515.html

I've just put some foot cream on (my skin tend to dry out and crack when I wear sandals a lot) - but I've had that tube several years now!

 

[JamesWhitehead]

I place my faith in Monkey Spunk. When they learn how to bottle its creamy nutrients, I'll save a fortune in bananas. :splat:

 

[rynner2]

I place my faith in Monkey Spunk. When they learn how to bottle its creamy nutrients, I'll save a fortune in bananas. :splat:

Try this - Monkey Cum recipe:
http://cocktail-recipes.nl/recipe/8780/ ... ecipe.html

 

[amester]

(Getting back to the original thread subject) Great, another excuse to wantonly slaughter animals (including some endangered species) for our human vanity (speaking of the shark fins). "Traditional medicine" is so often just ground up tiger bones or panda testicles or whatever other thing is supposed to be a wise old remedy for human ailments, an aphrodisciac, etc.- baloney! :headbutt: Sometimes I wish I could live with something other than the human race on this earth.

 

[rynner2]

'Snake venom' anti-wrinkle cream becomes best-seller
An anti-wrinkle face cream that mimics the venom of an Asian snake has become a best-seller.

By Graham Tibbetts
Last Updated: 1:49PM BST 09 Sep 2008

The makers of Planet Skincare daily mosturiser say it "stuns" the skin in a similar way to a snake bite, helping to keep the face smooth. Gwyneth Paltrow is said to be a devotee.

Described as giving "Botox-like results", the £60 anti-ageing cream went on sale last week in Selfridges.

It is said to be selling at the rate of 50 pots per day, becoming one of the London department store's most popular skincare lines.

The cream incorporates a synthetic version of the poison from the Temple Viper, a distant cousin of the rattlesnake and indigenous to Malaysia.

Amino acids in the venom block nerve signals telling the muscles to contract, helping to stop wrinkles forming.

The active ingredient won the 2006 Swiss Technology Award.

Dr Aamer Khan, medical director of the Harley Street Medical Skin Clinic in London, said: "This could work for somebody who doesn;t want injections. The effects are not going to be as dramatic as with Botox. It will also need to be reapplied as the body gets rid of it quickly."

Each 30ml pot is designed to last about a month.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... eller.html

 

[Anonymous]

I thought shark products have been used for ages as anti haemorrhoid treatment and anti wrinkle treatment.

I even used to have a sig stating that prep H should be used to fight wrinkles many moons ago as the previous Chriswsm now known as Chriswsm~.