Now it's official: the entire beauty industry is built on the peddling of pernicious nonsense

It sells products that don't really work to people who don't really need them at prices they can't really afford

by Sam Leith

They lied to us! Who knew? I mean, one moment, there you are, slumped on the sofa, drooling away in happy open-mouthed assent as the lady on the telly tells you that her face cream will make you look like Scarlett Johansson. The next, you discover that it's not true. All their face cream will do is make your face greasier and your wallet lighter.

This - in outline - is the finding that has been made by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) against an advert in which "beauty journalist" Eve Cameron tells us that "if you're not ready for cosmetic injections" help is at hand in the form of Olay Regenerist.

"This study, revealed at the World Congress of Dermatology, showed that pentapeptides are effective in reducing the appearance of lines and wrinkles." Now, at last, it will allow you to "love the skin you're in".

The ASA pointed out unhelpfully that: a) this goo has no comparable effect to injections, and b) the ad misled customers by implying there was scientific evidence that this goo works. There was no proof that, if this goo's pentapeptides do do anything at all, it is "visually significant to the consumer". A home run, then, for Ms Cameron's investigative journalism.

The thing about anti-ageing cream - a thing so blatantly obvious that it seems a miracle the ASA hasn't coughed quietly and pointed it out more often - is that it doesn't sodding well exist. There is no such thing. Nowhere in the universe.

You cannot rub a mixture of water (or "aqua" as they, with embolism-inducing pretentiousness, call it on the pots) and vegetable oil into your skin, however many scientific-sounding branded ingredients they've stirred into it, and have any effect whatsoever on the process of ageing that is taking place in the cells throughout your body.

The adverts might as well say "defy the second law of thermodynamics with face cream" or "thanks to the special scientifically developed molecules in our moisturiser, the earth's gravitational field need not affect you". This is an entire industry built on pernicious horse manure, and the only wrinkles it's likely to reduce are the ones on your cerebellum.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/05/beauty-industry-fraud