Spring bonus time at London’s Harvey Nichols and the cosmetics department on the ground floor is abuzz. Shop assistants are spritzing, perfumed candles are flickering and the air is heavy with the scent of tuberose and jasmine. There are women of every age, shape and colour being preened, polished and buffed. But there is one woman who has done the rounds of Lancôme and L’Oréal — and won’t be coming back. She is the glossy 50-year-old Lesley Regan, a lover of high glamour and high heels who also happens to be an eminent professor of obstetrics and gynaecology.
Regan is a scientist turned sleuth. For Professor Regan’s Beauty Parlour, a documentary to be shown on BBC2 on Tuesday, she set out to investigate the amazing time-defying claims of the beauty industry. Age-ing? This cream will turn back the clock. Wrinkles? That collagen filler will knock them dead. “There are lots of lotions out there that cost more than £50 an ounce,” she says. “They promise to reduce visible signs of ageing, but what will they really do? They might be no better than a tube of cream that costs £1.50 from your chemist.”
One thing, she adds, needs no further scientific trials. All these serums, so seductively packaged, will deliver a lasting difference to your purse that is not superficial. And yes, as if we needed reminding, we do appear as a nation to have more money than sense.
As part of her research, Regan had her crow’s feet analysed, her hair shafts exposed to an electron microscope and her teeth examined for ageing. A willing guinea pig, she had lotions and potions tested on her. We witness Regan “before and after”. Was she glossier, softer? She was certainly brave. Most women won’t step out of the house without full war paint, yet Regan gamely consented to be stripped of foundation, blusher and mascara, to have her hair scraped back and every pore and broken vein on her face analysed and magnified.
She toured the country visiting the headquarters of Boots in Nottingham, where more than 1m pots of cosmetics are produced each day, and questioned the white coats at Procter & Gamble, the beauty giant. Antioxidants, collagen, anticellulite, free radicals — they all came under scrutiny. Along the way she discovered that sodium laureth sulfate, a soapy ingredient of shampoo, was developed to remove grease from car engines and that nonchip nail varnish grew out of car paint. “I used to be in awe of all the products out there,” she says. “I always thought I should know a bit more about them, pay more attention.” Having done her homework, the awe is on hold.
By far the biggest revelation for her is the paradox of the beauty counter: “The main point about cosmetics is that they, by definition, cannot have any lasting effect on the skin. Their effects must be superficial and impermanent. If that is not the case, then they should be reclassified as medicines. And that would involve the companies in long and costly clinical trials.” So it’s a mug’s game for the customer. Shell out lots of money for a beautifully packaged product that is guaranteed to make no long-term difference. “I’m aware that we are all gullible and fallible,” she says, with feeling, “but that’s what makes us human.”
Regan, who qualified as a doctor at the Royal Free in Hampstead, north London, was the first female professor of obstetrics and gynaecology in Britain. She runs a clinic at St Mary’s hospital in Paddington and is regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on miscarriage. The mother of 15-year-old twin girls, she lives in central London with her husband, a liver specialist.
Two years ago, following in the footsteps of Dr Miriam Stoppard, she published a best-selling childbirth guide which has now been translated into six languages.
Her academic credentials make her just the person to guide us through the hyperbole of the marketplace. Walk into any high street chemist and you need a working knowledge of Mendeleev’s periodic table to understand what’s going on. There is pro-calcium and biospheres, nanosomes and something called Boswelox. There are serums that promise “double lift” and potions offering “silicone texture”. How much is hard science and how much is hocus-pocus?
Knowing the answers to such questions will save us all money. Last year Britons spent an estimated £554m on skincare, most of it on antiageing creams. The moisturiser Crãme de la Mer, launched seven years ago, costs £115 and there is no shortage of takers. Then there are other products that cost the same as a holiday. April sees the launch of ReVive Peau Magnifique, at £1,050 for a month’s supply. Created by plastic surgeons in America, it claims to reset the skin’s ageing clock by five years and to have the power to reduce wrinkles by 45%. It makes Dior’s new L’Or de Vie, a mere £250, seem cheap by comparison. Lower down the scale there is a raft of unguents costing an average of £25 a pop.
What’s her verdict? Here’s a clue. Just after she finished filming, Regan went straight to her bathroom cupboard and threw most of the contents away: “I’m a bit of a squirrel. I had old mascara, bits of creams in pots and it all went out.” Her own slimmed-down make-up bag now contains a concealer, mascara, lipstick and a simple moisturiser — with a built-in sunscreen.
It came as a huge shock realising the toll that sunbathing had taken on her epidermis. “I was told that in terms of sun exposure I had the skin of a woman of 58,” she says. “I don’t think we realised when I was growing up how much damage is done to the lower layers of the skin by burning.” Now she tells her daughters, who are just starting to experiment with cosmetics, always to use a moisturiser with built-in sunscreen.
Conditioner for her expensively highlighted hair also makes it onto her bathroom shelf. Dividing her hair in two, she washed half with a product designed for chemically treated hair, the other with an ordinary formula. The results were conclusive enough for her to change her shopping habits: “I used to be a 2-for1 person. Now that’s different.” Soft, plumped, moisturised skin and silky, shiny hair. So far so good. But what about the crow’s feet and the antiageing claims of the men from the lab?
She frowns. Before we get too excited we should read the small print. Picking up a glossy magazine, she looks for the beauty advertisements: “Many products that claim age-defying benefits also carry a disclaimer in tiny print.” It will often completely contradict the whole tenor of the advertisement.
Regan is far from thinking that the industry is dominated by charlatans out to make a fast buck. There is good science out there. She cites the example of Sir Harry Kroto, the Nobel prizewinner for chemistry, who helped to discover the structure of the molecule C60. Its shape, like a football, attracts free radicals which can attack the structure of cells leading to damage. C60 is an element of some expensive face creams, although its dermatological claims to reduce wrinkles and repair ageing skin are not yet proven. She would also like to see more studies of the chemical tretinoin, an acid form of vita-min A which, like C60, may also fight free radicals: “But more work needs to be done.”
Our hard-nosed scientist does not see women as a bunch of narcissists or suckers for the sharp sales pitch: “I think the smells and the packaging make us buy. As long as it does not become an obsession, then it makes people happy.” And the money you save by not buying that pot of £400 miracle cream could pay for a holiday in the sun. As long as you pack your sunblock? “Of course.”
source
