Alice Hart-Davis has been writing about beauty and tweakments for 20 years and is widely considered by doctors and brands to be the UK’s leading non-medical expert in this field so it’s safe to say she knows her stuff. Alice has also trialled countless procedures and grilled the world’s leading medical experts on all things Botox, fillers, lasers and peels to deduce everything we’ve ever wanted to know about non-surgical cosmetic procedures.
It made sense, then, that she compiled all of her insider intel into a book, The Tweakments Guide, which is packed with informative, independent and unbiased advice on which treatments do what, and exactly how.
To mark the launch of her book, Alice has shared an extract with GLAMOUR where she delves into the often confusing world of skincare and answers literally every question you ever had about it.
Is It Skincare or Is It Medicine?
How potent and effective can skincare get before it has to be classed as medicine? That’s a good question.
Many non-pharmaceutical products have plenty of proof – in the form of clinical trials – that they work. But by law a cosmetic product should make only a cosmetic change to the skin. If it makes a physiological change to the skin – ie it actually changes the skin in some way, which is very much what most active skincare is aiming to do – then, technically, shouldn’t it be classified as medicine?
The short answer is – no, as long as the product isn’t making a medicinal claim. That applies even if the product is claiming to improve wrinkles. As far as the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is concerned, wrinkles are not an adverse medical condition, so claims to reduce their appearance, or to increase the elasticity of skin, fall under cosmetic regulation.
How Skincare Affects The Way Our Skin Genes Behave
There are about 2,000 genes related to the way our skin ages. The study of genes and the way they function is called genomics – and Procter & Gamble, the pharmaceutical company behind brands such as Olay, has been studying skin genomics for over a decade.
‘The genes you are born with won’t change through your life,’ explains Dr Frauke Neuser, Senior Director of Scientific Communications at Procter & Gamble, ‘but what will change is how dynamic those 2,000 genes are. We know the group of genes that is important to make you look young. The next step is to overlay this with the active ingredients we have in our database and work out which skincare ingredients can affect gene expression.’
Even skincare products in this area are not classed as medicines. That’s because, even if they are improving the expression of certain genes – for example, switching back on the ones that make collagen – the products are not making medicinal claims.
Natural, organic, vegan, clean
Natural beauty sounds like a lovely idea. Organic beauty, too. We all have a romantic notion that natural things are good for us – and often they are – and we like to extend that to skincare. If we want to eat natural, unadulterated foods, preferably organic, why wouldn’t we want to use ‘natural’, unadulterated products that are ‘kind’ to our skin?
I’ve put those inverted commas because – reality check – when it comes to skincare, it’s not that simple. There’s no agreed definition of what ‘natural’ means in skincare. Many brilliant natural- beauty brands (eg Weleda, Green People, Dr Hauschka) have clear standards and follow them scrupulously; but in marketing terms, it’s quite possible to slap the word ‘natural’ on a product if there is just one natural ingredient in it – say, lavender oil.
Organic skincare is more precise. In order to meet the standards for organic certification, a product has to be made from organically farmed ingredients. You can read more about this on the Soil Association website, www.soilassociation.org.
As for vegan skincare, there’s no legal definition of precisely what makes a vegan beauty product; but vegans will have a pretty clear idea of the types of ingredient that they want to avoid, ie anything that is animal-derived. So no beeswax and no collagen (which all comes from animal sources); but – perhaps less obviously no retinol, which is usually derived from animal sources. Other ingredients, such as hyaluronic acid and glycerin (which is every- where), can be either animal-derived or plant-derived; you’ll need to check which.
Then there’s the point made by cosmetic scientists, that skincare products made with natural or vegan ingredients won’t be as efficacious as those containing synthetic active ingredients. Why? Because plants have cell walls made from cellulose, which don’t get broken down by the enzymes on the skin, so a plant cell won’t really deliver its nutritious ingredients quite so well.
And I’m not against any of these – each to their own, and all that – but the clean beauty movement really winds me up.
Why ‘Clean Beauty’ Drives Me Mad
Clean beauty? If you haven’t heard of it, it’s the beauty equivalent of ‘clean eating’; and in the same way, it demonises a great many good beauty brands and products and ingredients by implying they’re not as ‘clean’ as they should be.
Clean beauty is one of the biggest skincare movements just now and, if you ask me, one of the most maddening. It has grabbed the moral high ground on dubious reasoning – and it somehow man- ages to imply that all other skincare is, by contrast, ‘dirty’. Not a good word.
Why I find the concept of clean beauty particularly irritating is that it manages to wrap all the standard arguments in this area into one big virtuous package: the supposed supremacy of natural skin- care; the hackneyed ‘natural’ vs ‘chemical’ ingredients issue; scaremongering about the need to avoid ‘nasties’ (a generic term for ingredients that clean beauty fans deem to be bad or, worse, ‘toxic’); and give longstanding, well- accredited ingredients – such as parabens, mineral oil, and sulphates – a real bashing along the way. Clean beauty does all this by using emotional arguments and banking on people’s lack of understanding of science to create a sense of alarm and worry, that by using products that aren’t ‘clean’, people are actively harming their skin and their bodies.
Oh, and clean beauty usually grabs a part of cruelty-free beauty and ‘free from’ tagging for good measure.
An added annoyance for those of us in the beauty industry is that the sweeping popularity of this movement is dragging cosmetic formulations back decades by chasing older, more ‘natural’ ingredients and ignoring the extraordinary new ones that cosmetic science is conjuring up just now.
Also, they’re just wrong, if you ask me. Why do I say that? Here goes.
Natural Doesn’t Mean ‘Better’
I’m not ‘anti-natural’. I’m really not. I just feel it needs saying that not everything ‘natural’ is ‘better’ for the skin. Also, I object to the way that people who are passionate about the supposed benefits of natural products argue their case by appealing to people’s emotions rather than by using scientifically based facts. Even an emotionally-driven, non-scientific person like me can see that that doesn’t make sense.
Making Sense of the ‘Natural’ vs ‘Chemical’ Debate
I have put the words ‘natural’ and ‘chemical’ in inverted commas because in scientific terms, every substance in the world, including every substance used in making skincare and cosmetics, has a chemical formula, whether it’s water or beeswax or a new kind of high-performance anti-wrinkle neuropeptide. Using the word ‘chemical’ as a stick to beat much of modern skincare with is the sort of thing that drives cosmetic scientists mad.
Natural, Organic, Vegan, ‘Clean’
Ten years ago, the Royal Society for Chemistry announced that it would pay a £1million bounty to the first person who could show them a chemical-free skincare product. Of course, their money is quite safe as no such thing exists; they were doing this to make a point, and the offer still stands.
‘The challenge has been set because research by the UK’s cosmetic and toiletries industry reveals 52% of women and 37% of men actively seek out chemical-free products, demonstrating the deep-seated public confusion about the role and application of chemicals in daily life,’ said the RSC’s press release at the time, adding that the popular perception of chemicals was ‘something harmful to be avoided, a view shared by 84% of consumers who feel at some level concerned about the health impact of the chemicals in their everyday products’.
You might say that’s nit-picking, but I think it’s a point worth making. And, semantics aside, you may well prefer skincare products based on natural ingredients. What I’d ask is, ‘Why?. An answer I often get when I ask this is that people want to avoid ‘harsh chemicals’. That sounds fair enough – but seriously, what are these ‘harsh chemicals’? Every formulation for every skin- care product that goes on sale, from kitchen-table concoctions to mass-market brands, is subject to EU cosmetic regulations, specifically to ensure that it contains nothing harmful. No one puts lead in cosmetics, as was the popular practice in the 16th century. The main purpose of those regulations is to ensure ‘human safety’.
When pressed on what these ‘harsh chemicals’ are, naturals- fans will name categories of ingredients such as parabens, which are used as preservatives; sulphates, which are foaming ingredients; and mineral-oil derivatives. (I’ll get onto the ins and outs of these below.) ‘They’re dangerous,’ they’ll say. ‘I’ve read so much about it online. You really shouldn’t use these things.’
Ah yes, online. I hope we are all a little more aware now of how easy it is to get into an echo chamber of views online, which applies as much to skincare as to politics. Once you’re in there, it becomes harder to believe that so many people could be wrong… Yet those types of ingredients mentioned above are all absolutely safe to use on the skin. Also, it’s worth noting that many of these feared ingredients are natural derivatives. Parabens are found in coffee and blueberries; sulphates such as sodium lauryl sulphate can be de- rived from coconut oil or palm oil.
For sure, lots of natural ingredients are great for the skin, but natural ingredients aren’t without issues. Any kind of fragrance can be irritating to the skin, and that includes essential oils. Any ingredient derived from lemon or other citrus fruit sensitises the skin to sunlight. But as with most things in life, there are few blanket rules of good and bad here; and as with many modern beliefs about skincare, things get taken out of context and blown out of proportion.
Lavender oil has a long-standing popular reputation for helping repair burns and heal wounds. Yet if you search online for ‘lavender oil causes cell death’, you will find a number of references to stand this up, including the studies showing that lavender oil is indeed toxic to skin cells. But this experiment was done ‘in vitro’, in a lab, and exposed cells directly to lavender oil. In real life, skin cells live among other tiny structures in a swamp of cellular fluid in the dermal matrix of the skin, and are protected from the world by the stratum corneum, the outer layers of the epidermis, so you’d never get that oil directly onto a skin cell, even through wounded skin. So using lavender oil on pulse points to calm you down (a very real effect; I’d strongly advise you not to do this when driving) or to heal a burn is not going to kill your skin cells. Honestly.
I could go on.
Years ago, I chaired a debate at the Royal Society of Chemistry on behalf of the Society for Cosmetic Scientists (SCS). The debate was about Cosmetics, Chemicals and the Truth, and we waded through either side of these issues until the panel and the audience were both feeling exhausted. One moment of clarity for me came when a younger member of SCS stood up to speak. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m a cosmetic formulator. I just want to put forward the idea that there is no right or wrong; what there is, is just options and choices. So, for any given brief, I can choose natural or synthetic chemicals. You have got to look at the performance of the product you are trying to achieve, the price point that you are retailing it at, and also the aesthetics. With that in mind, you come up with a formulation involving a cocktail of chemicals which will be a mix of both natural and synthetic.’
A choice – that’s what it comes down to. I don’t want to start sounding as if I’m a ‘chemicals-only’ sort of person – I’m really not but I do find it tiresome that many people, particularly the fans of ‘natural’ beauty products, seem to assure that big beauty companies are in some way out to get them, and to ruin their skin, by selling products containing dangerous ingredients, which simply isn’t the case.
‘NASTIES’ AND ‘TOXIC’ INGREDIENTS
To recap what I said above, there are no toxic ingredients in skincare. There really aren’t. I really object to the word ‘nasties’, too, which is used vaguely to demonise a whole host of cosmetic ingredients. So why do so many people think that many common ingredients are such a problem? Let’s take a look at the key ingredients, or ingredient groups, that people think are problematic.
What’s Wrong with Parabens?
If you’ve heard of parabens, the chances are that you won’t like the sound of the word. They’re bad, aren’t they? So many skincare products proudly proclaim that they are free from parabens. Surely, parabens must be bad?
In a word – no, there’s nothing wrong with parabens. They’ve been unfairly demonised through a combination of bad science, media hype, and popular hysteria.
What are parabens?
Parabens are commonly used preservatives, which are good at doing their job – preventing the growth of mould, fungi, and bacteria in cosmetic products – without irritating the skin.
Parabens are derived from para-hydroxybenzoic acid (PHBA), which is found in foods like blueberries and onions, so our bodies are used to dealing with the stuff. The parabens in cosmetics are not naturally derived, because it’s cheaper to make them in the lab than to extract them from blueberries, but they are ‘nature- identical’, which means they have the same chemical formula, so our bodies convert them to PHBA and dispense with them.
What are parabens called and what do they do?
What are parabens called on the packaging label? Parabens have names such as methylparaben, ethylparaben, butylparaben, propylparaben, isopropylparaben, and isobutylparaben. 20 years ago, you would find such parabens in most cosmetic products that had water in the formulations, as preservatives to prevent contamination.
What do people think is wrong with parabens?
But a research study published in 2004, which found parabens in breast cancer tissue, changed all that. Could the parabens have found their way into the tumours from the beauty products these women might have used? Was common skincare causing cancer? I remember reading the headline at my desk at the Evening Standard and, like most other women who read it, feeling complete horror – were we killing ourselves in the pursuit of beauty? The media seized on the story, and it shot around the world, raising more questions than it answered. Were parabens dangerous? How had they got into the breast tumours? Had they caused the tumours? Was it deodorant that was to blame?
My alarm soon turned to bafflement, because when I turned to my expert contacts for information – the toxicologists, the skincare formulators, industry experts – it appeared that the story had got ahead of the facts. The study, it turned out, was fundamentally flawed. It didn’t compare the breast tumour tissue to healthy tissue, and what went unreported was the fact that concentrations of parabens were also found on the control slides, the blank slides with no breast tissue on them. Could that have been because all the slides used in the experiment had been cleaned, before use, with a solution containing parabens?
In which case, were the parabens in the original tumour slides actually just on the slides, and not in the tumours at all? Discrediting the study made absolutely no difference to the ongoing storm in the cosmetics industry and the consumer hysteria around the potential dangers of parabens. Companies hustled to remove parabens from their products and find alternative preservatives. However natural the natural lobby would like their products to be, the products need preservatives, or else they’ll develop (entirely natural, but unpleasant) mould and become unusable.
And so parabens became the bad guys. There’s a lot on the internet about their ‘oestrogenic potential’ – the ability of parabens to mimic the effects of oestrogen in the body. Yes, that sounds really damning. But cosmetic scientists and toxicologists beg to differ, pointing out that the oestrogenic potential of parabens is vanishingly small – thousands of times less than oestrogenic substances in food such as chickpeas and linseeds. You’d need a dose of butylparaben 25,000 times higher than what is used in a cosmetic, to see this effect.
There have been many further studies on parabens and breast cancer, but none of these has found any link between the two. The parabens-are-bad lobby persists, citing the ‘cosmetic cocktail’ effect, suggesting that a small effect may become more of a problem if a person uses many paraben-containing products in a day. Cosmetic formulators and scientists dismiss the cocktail theory, and I’m totally with them. Most skincare products and their ingredients sit on the surface of the skin. It’s a struggle to get them into the skin tissue where they’re needed. They don’t simply slip down through the layers, get absorbed into the bloodstream, and start creating havoc.
The European Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety considers parabens to be safe. So does the American FDA. But that isn’t going to stop the rumour-mill or put the parabens-genie back in its bottle. The misinformation has spread widely, and the natural-and-clean beauty movements have perpetuated online concerns around parabens. Making this worse, most of us don’t understand science well enough to argue effectively against the misinformation and distortions. As a result, people have decided that parabens are a bad thing, and see ‘free from parabens’ as a clear benefit when it’s stated on packaging. As a journalist, I find editors have little interest in stories along the lines of ‘old-style preservatives not as bad as they’ve been made out to be’.
Many skincare companies have told me privately that they don’t have a problem with parabens, but the companies can’t include parabens in their formulations because consumers fear them so strongly. This topic isn’t going to go away, but honestly, there’s nothing wrong with parabens.
One last thought: Parabens are widely used in the food industry as preservatives. I suspect an awful lot of people who fear parabens in skincare don’t know they’re eating them…
What’s Wrong with Mineral Oil?
Another ingredient condemned by natural beauty fans is mineral oil, one of the longest-standing, cheapest and most commonly used cosmetic ingredients.
What is mineral oil?
Mineral oil is a by-product of the process that makes petrol, so it’s not remotely ‘green’ or environmentally friendly – but is it actually bad for the skin, as people think? No, it’s not. Mineral oil makes a really effective moisturiser because it is so ‘occlusive’, which means it sits on the surface of the skin and holds in moisture. Many people love using Johnson’s Baby Oil on damp skin after a shower, to ‘seal in’ moisture; many others love Bio-Oil for softening the skin. These are both made from mineral oil. Petroleum jelly, another by-product of petrol manufacture, which most of us know as Vaseline, works well to keep lips soft (again, by sealing in moisture).
So mineral oil has its uses. But it has been demonised over recent years by the popular and vocal natural-skincare community, to the extent that most people think they should avoid it because it is somehow ‘bad’. It really isn’t.
Here’s what people think is wrong with mineral oil:
It ‘clogs’ the skin. Mineral oil is very effective at keeping moisture in the skin – hence the longstanding practice of using oil on damp skin after a shower, to ‘seal in’ moisture.
It blocks pores and causes spots. Well, technically, highly-refined mineral oil is non-comedogenic (which means it does not contain ingredients that are known to block pores), because its large molecules are too big to stuff themselves into the openings of pores. But because it is so effective at sealing over the skin, if your skin is buzzing with acne bacteria and has pores that are already threatening to block because of hormonal imbalances, mineral oil is not a helpful thing to spread all over it. So no, just don’t use mineral-oil products if you’re prone to spots.
It ‘suffocates’ the skin and stops it from ‘breathing’. The skin doesn’t have a respiratory system; it doesn’t ‘breathe’, so covering your skin in oil won’t stop it breathing (and no, Jill Masterson, the character in the Bond film Goldfinger, who died from ‘skin suffocation’ after being painted with gold paint – that couldn’t happen IRL). But, as I’ve said, mineral oil makes a very effective barrier, so it can help stop water escaping from the skin, which keeps skin better moisturised.
It is thought to be cancer-causing. Some components of industrial-grade mineral oil have been found to be carcino- genic, but these components are not found in cosmetic-grade mineral oil. Other concerns include the suggestion – no more than a suggestion at the moment – that mineral-oil hydrocarbons may ‘contaminate’ the body, possibly by being absorbed through the skin, though we also absorb these pollutants from food and from the air.
So depending on your views about skincare and its origins, you may want to avoid mineral oil.
Do I put mineral oil on my skin? Yes, but not often, just because I am always trying out new products, and most newer products don’t contain it.
Mineral oil may not be a modern or eco-friendly choice for skincare, but it is not evil incarnate. I know a couple of cosmetic doctors who apply it at night on top of their expensive skin- renewing and hydrating night serums, specifically in order to keep moisture in the skin, even around the eyes. And yes, I do still reach for the Vaseline as a lip-smoother or Vaseline Intensive Care lotion as a body moisturiser from time to time.
What’s Wrong with Sulphates?
Another widely used ingredient that draws widespread vilification is sulphates.
What are sulphates?
Sulphates are a group of ingredients that help products to foam up and produce lather. Sulphates are detergents – effective de-greasing agents – so you will find them in body washes, bubble baths, and foaming face washes, as well as shampoos and toothpastes.
What do people think is wrong with sulphates?
Sulphates can irritate the skin. Also, depending on their concentra- tion, many people feel sulphates can wash rather more natural oils out of the skin than is good for it. And ‘detergent’ sounds a bit blunt for a product you’d be using on your face, doesn’t it?
The main types of sulphates that come in for criticism are: Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS). This is an effective lather- producing ingredient; it’s also cheap, so it’s widely used. But SLS is also a well-known skin irritant. In fact it is irritating enough to be used as a control in tests for skin irritancy of other substances. This is what has led to its bad reputation. How could we deliberately put an ingredient – or as many would phrase it, a ‘chemical’, which makes it sound even worse – into products that everyone uses? The simple answer is because almost every product SLS is used in is a wash-off, and most people aren’t sensitive enough to SLS for it to be a problem in products that are only in contact with the skin for a short stretch of time as a shampoo or a face-wash. But if you are sensitive to SLS, then it’s one to avoid. And whatever the scaremongering websites may say, SLS is not carcinogenic.
Sodium Laureth Sulphate (SLES). This is a close cousin of SLS, but not as cheap and a bit less irritating to the skin. But then both these sulphates have the potential to irritate the skin, as does any other ingredient ending in -sulphate which is used to replace SLS and SLES. Sulphate-replacement ingre- dients like cocomidopropyl betane, which is usually just used as a lather-booster, don’t have the same ability to produce lather on their own.
The bottom line? Sulphates are only a problem if you are sensitive to them – in which case, look for products with alternative foaming ingredients; and bear in mind that foam is the most effective way of transporting dirt away from the skin.
What’s Wrong with Silicones?
Silicones are another hapless group of ingredients that has fallen foul of popular opinion.
What are silicones?
Silicones are ingredients derived from sand which are used in skincare and make-up to give a silky, velvety feel to products, to help them spread, and to help moisturise the skin. Silicones are used in haircare to smooth the hair and protect it from heat styling and humidity.
What are silicones called on the packaging? The one you see most often is dimethicone, which is a silicon polymer. Other ingredients whose names end in -cone, such as methicone and phenyl trimethicone, are also silicones, as are ingredients ending – siloxane (such as cyclopentasiloxane).
What do people think is wrong with silicones?
People’s objections to silicones are much the same as with mineral oil products. Silicones are thought to smother and block the skin and to provoke breakouts of acne, to prevent active ingredients getting to the skin, and to be hard to remove.
Do silicones deserve this bad reputation? No. Because they spread well and form a smooth covering on the surface of the skin, they’re good at helping hold moisture in the skin – they’re often recommended for helping scars heal, for this reason – but they’re still permeable to gas and moisture, which means that they’re not forming a watertight seal on your skin. They don’t block pores, so they are ‘non-comedogenic’.
Silicones don’t stop active ingredients getting into the skin. They themselves will stay on the surface of the skin, but active ingredients within a formulation that contains silicones will find their way downwards into the skin through them. In make-up products, silicones can help kick back the light, to blur the look of wrinkles, which is always helpful for a dull complexion.
The bottom line: there is nothing wrong with silicones. They won’t hurt your skin, nor cause spots, nor damage your hair, nor harm the environment, for that matter. But if you find they don’t suit you, then of course, look for alternatives.
If you don’t like any of the above ingredients, fair enough. It’s entirely your choice. I just wanted to point out that they’re not quite such bad guys as they are usually made out to be.
Alice Hart-Davis, Beauty Journalist, skincare expert and author of The Tweakments Guide: Start with Skincare.