“A famous scientist [doctor, chemist, pharmacist, dermatologist, or whatever—I've heard it all] created this formula and it is only now available to the public.”

Lots of doctors and chemists are involved in creating all kinds of products in the world of cosmetics, but all cosmetics contain standard cosmetic ingredients. They can’t contain anything else, as drugs do, or they would be regulated quite differently.

My favorite example of this type of claim is Estee Lauder Creme de la Mer. Quite a story accompanies this very costly little cream! It was created by Max Huber, a NASA aerospace physicist, supposedly to take care of burns he received in an accident. He sold and marketed this product himself. After his death, his daughter continued selling the cream until recently, when Estee Lauder purchased the rights to manufacture and distribute it.

The reality is that this very basic, and I mean really basic, cream doesn’t contain anything particularly extraordinary or unique, unless you want to believe that seaweed extract (sort of like seaweed tea) can somehow be worth this much money, or that it can in some way heal burns and scars. According to Susan Brawley, professor of plant biology at the University of Maine, “seaweed extract isn’t a rare, exotic, or expensive ingredient. Seaweed extract is readily available and used in everything from cosmetics to food products and medical applications.” Creme de la Mer contains mostly seaweed extract, mineral oil, petrolatum (similar to Vaseline), glycerin, waxlike thickening agents, plant oils, plant seeds, minerals, vitamins, more thickeners, and preservatives. How expensive can it be to stick some seaweed and vitamins in a cosmetic? According to the cosmetics chemists I’ve interviewed, it costs pennies, not hundreds of dollars.

Moreover, several additional products with formulas that are unrelated to the first now accompany Creme de la Mer’s original miracle product. If the first one was so spectacular why did it need company, and why did the subsequent products have completely different formulations? I guess the original wasn’t quite the miracle formula they thought it was.

“You have nighttime free radicals and daytime free radicals. Daytime free radicals are the sun and pollution, the nighttime free radicals are, um, I’m really not sure what those little boogers, the little nighttime pesticides, are that damage your skin at night, but they are there!”

Free radicals are destructive molecules that cannot tell time! Yes, it is true that sunlight is a major source of free radicals generated in the daytime, yet pollution, whether coming from auto exhaust or industrial pollutants, is ever-present. The level of pollutants may be higher during daylight hours, but it certainly doesn’t disappear when the sun goes down! And what about the fact that the oxygen we need to live is a potent source of free-radical damage, and that’s around all the time, too?

I don’t know what to make of the “nighttime pesticides” comment, but unless you are sleeping in a field or on farmland that has recently been crop-dusted, I wouldn’t be too concerned about pesticides on your skin at night.

Regardless of whether it’s day or night, antioxidants are state-of-the-art ingredients to look for when shopping for skin-care products, and there are dozens available (with no clear-cut “best” choice among them), but none of them can distinguish between daytime and nighttime free radicals. In theory, antioxidants in well-formulated skin-care products should perform regardless of the time of day.

A very attractive, young, pert, blonde receptionist who had just heard me do an interview on the radio station where she worked asked me on my way out, “Should a 25-year-old start using anti-aging products?” I thought, what does she want to do, revert to birth? But I knew what she meant and I responded by saying, “the only thing you really need is a great sunscreen, and be sure to never get a tan, and you will do fine; the rest is just skin care, important but not as relevant in any way in comparison to being sun smart.” She sat up and in a 20-something kind of way, said “But I love the sun and I love getting tan, I just don’t want to wrinkle.” I said, “Well then, you might as well buy a lottery ticket, because you probably believe you will win that windfall as well! False hope springs eternal; the reality you live in isn’t how skin works.”

Okay, I was in a mood. I usually just smile and walk away, but it’s getting worse out there, not better and my frustration is at an all-time high. If I believed in conspiracy theories I would say the media is in bed with the cosmetics industry, but alas it isn’t theory, it’s fact. Every time I do a talk show I’m always asked if I’m going to be critical of any of their advertisers, of if I’m going to say anything that might be of legal concern (sort of like Oprah Winfrey saying she didn’t want to eat hamburger). Advertisers are in control of what I say on TV or radio, and even to some extent in print (fashion magazines are a foregone conclusion; they treat me as if I don’t exist or simply don’t know what I’m talking about).

Reporters all over the world ask me what works, but the answer assumes that something must work to get rid of wrinkles. The endless press releases from mainstream cosmetics companies, physician-owned cosmetic companies, and spas and salons of all kinds have created the ultimate, anti-wrinkle products, you just have to find the ones that aren’t lying to you (somehow we know everyone can’t be telling the truth, but the notion that everyone is lying to one degree or another is something most women just won’t believe) and the one in front of you at the moment (especially if you’re feeling vulnerable) or that’s endorsed by a celebrity or has an attractive ad wins every time.

Women seemingly never tire of a product promising it can firm the skin, erase wrinkles, restore youth, fight aging, and on and on. There are literally thousands and thousands of anti-aging products perpetually using the same nebulous yet miraculous claims that often stop just short of lying (or blatantly lie). In some ways it is beyond belief how many products are launched every month, year after year. But because women keep believing the claims from the endless assault of anti-aging/anti-wrinkle products, I guess for me, it’s job security!