Harum Serum

The vanity cosmetic industry must be one of the most ludicrous in it’s advertising campaigns and yet billions are made in profit every year, all in the name of vanity. I guess it’s an easy sell. The potential buyer wants to feel better about some aspect of their appearance and are easily convinced by the pseudo scientific babble that accompanies these products nowadays.

A popular one at the moment is the inclusion of the word ’serum’ on the product’s packaging and in advertising – ‘this wondrous wrinkle banishing cream contains a serum, specially formulated to reduce wrinkles. It has been tested on old man Steptoe’s bollocks and he now has two shiny billiard balls swinging in his trousers’.

Wrinkle banishing creams are a real good one to look at – and there are lots of them. As far as I can find, there is absolutely no scientific evidence that they work. There are no proper clinical trials that have been published. The statistics are usually given as something along the lines of  ’90% of women using Glassbollock wrinkle removal cream stated that they had seen a visible improvement in only two weeks of use’. Very scientific – and then you look at the small print and find that only 35 women had actually taken part in the survey.

So what are these amazing serums? Here is a dictionary definition of ’serum’.

se·rum (sir′əm)

noun pl. serums -·rums or  -·ra (-ə)

1. 1. a clear, watery animal fluid, as serous fluid
   2. the clear, yellowish fluid of the blood which separates from a blood clot after coagulation and shrinkage in full blood serum
2. blood serum containing agents of immunity, taken from an animal made immune to a specific disease by inoculation: it is used as an antitoxin and for diagnosis
3. the whey of milk
4. the thin, watery part of a plant fluid

I can’t see anything there that would make this an ideal wrinkle remover. The only wrinkles that you are removing by buying these products are the wrinkles in the many banknotes you will shelling out on useless nostrums and quack potions and unguents. They do not work.

Love your wrinkles. There’s nothing wrong with them!

Latest News – Boots have just paid for a proper clinical trial of one of their ’serums’ – very brave of them, but it paid off. Some positive results were noted with some people after 6 months use. Even though it only does any good for 1 in 5 people I can hear the cash registers from here!