Hype offers little but hope

Michelle Verryt likes natural products. Photo / Jason Dorday

Bombarded with a baffling array of meaningless ingredients all promising to do wonders, buyers of beauty products could be excused for picking the prettiest package and hoping for the best.

Hope, it turns out, is about all some of the products deliver.

While products boast impressive ingredients such as nutri-serum, stimulating Mg-02, liquidised crystals and pearl protein, hair and skin specialists say there is little evidence of scientific results.

The products trumpet often meaningless inventions dreamed up by clever marketing people, experts say.

Lining supermarket and hair salon shelves are "fortifying" conditioners and shampoos with "nutritive micro oils", royal jelly, "regenerating nutrients" and "aloe vera nutri serum".

One eye cream boasts Pro-retinol A plus "stimulift technology". Another moisturising lotion has mexoryl SX+XL, a trademarked sunscreen ingredient and something called "Activa-Cell", which a spokeswoman for the company said was an antioxidant.

But dermatologist Dr Julie Smith said despite the marketing hype there was only one anti-ageing ingredient with reliable scientific evidence behind it - sunscreen.

"That's the magical cream that is going to slow the signs of ageing and help your general appearance" she said.

"The most important thing for people to be aware of is that these products have a lot of time put into the marketing."

Hair and scalp specialist Nigel Russell said cheaper hair products contained diluted derivatives of pearl, crystals and cashmere - not the ingredient themselves.

"You can have success with supermarket brands, but I wouldn't go near anything that cost less than $5," he said.

"Above everything, the golden rule is the brighter the colour and the stronger the perfume the more it's going to strip the hair."

Auckland University marketing specialist Dr Denise Conroy said companies often walked a fine line between marketing the product and misleading the consumer.

"Consumers are used to metaphors like 'leaves your hair as soft as silk'. We all know this is fabrication, metaphors rather than specific scientific claims tend to be okay." She added that companies often advertised "nine out of 10 women noticed an improvement" but the claim was based on anecdotal evidence not science.

Brands used such jargon to "speak" to the consumer and create the sense that it was the product for them, Conroy added.

A VO5 spokeswoman said the ingredient "white pearl" in some of the brand's shampoos was actually amino acids extracted from pearl powder through a chemical process.

Grapeseed oil, jojoba oil and oils from apricot kernel, avocado and almond were included in products but she would not say in what concentration.

"The general rule of thumb is ingredients are listed in the order of concentration. Water is listed first because it is the primary ingredient in the VO5 product, as it is in most hair products."

Staying ahead of wrinkles

She's only 21, but Michelle Verryt is more than happy to invest in luxurious and expensive anti-ageing eye creams.

"I guess it's a preventative measure," the Auckland retail assistant says.

Her favourite is a Clarins product that costs about $80 for 15g.

"It's a super-hydrating, anti-wrinkle, broad spectrum cream that protects against everything."

Despite her tendency toward premium products, she's happy to use supermarket products for the rest of her beauty regime.

She switches between Herbal Essences and Sunsilk for shampoo - "it cleans your hair, that's all you need at the end of the day" - and buys the Aveeno face range.

"It's made of oatmeal, it's all natural. I like all that kind of thing."

Marketing specialist and Auckland University lecturer Dr Denise Conroy warned that so-called green products were "chemical soups" with small amounts of natural ingredients.