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Permalink Reply by Carrie Patrick on March 6, 2013 at 3:39pm

I did a Google search for a link to the source. Here's the original article about the study, on the University of Bath's website: New Study Says Nanoparticles Don't Penetrate The Skin and here's a link to the research paper itself: Objective Assessment of Nanoparticle Disposition.

The New Beauty article is like a case study in how research can be dumbed down and turned into speculation on mostly unrelated things that will appeal more to the typical member of the public. Look at what the New Beauty article leads with: "Some believe (skin creams) can turn you back into the 20-something version of yourself. But it turns out, all of that is really just a fantasy." This is true and I am pretty sure every esthetician, dermatologist, and halfway intelligent consumer would agree it's a fantasy to expect that. The problem is that the article then goes on to link the valid idea "skin creams aren't magic" with the incorrect idea that this study proves skin creams don't work at all.

The study doesn't prove anything of the sort, or even set out to. The findings of the article are just that nanoparticles do not cross into the body through the stratum corneum. Good information, and it will be important knowledge for many products and treatments, including medical treatments. But this fact implies nothing at all about products and treatments that are intended to affect only the stratum corneum, which is pretty much all esthetics treatments.

The final line of the New Beauty article says it all, really: go ahead and use skin creams, they will have an effect but only on the top layer of skin. You could point out to clients that any over-the-counter product that claims it will have an effect on anything BUT the top layer of skin is, and has always been, a pretty blatant lie. And that professional esthetics services also affect the top layer of skin and do it in a much more effective and noticeable way than mass market creams.

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Permalink Reply by Jodi on March 6, 2013 at 3:43pm

Great info, thanks!  Appreciate it.  The thing that bothers me is this stuff is just presented to the public and then leaves us to pick up the pieces with clients.  And I do know that retinol and vitamin C do boost collagen production and products can be penetrated with iontophoresis. 

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Permalink Reply by Carrie Patrick on March 6, 2013 at 3:54pm

Yeah, as a writer/editor myself, it drives me CRAZY to see how a lot of consumer-focused articles play off people's lack of understanding. Most people don't learn how to read something skeptically or notice how things can be worded misleadingly to make it seem like there's more/different proof of something than there really is. All we can do is keep educating people...

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