Once Popular as A Cold Remedy, A Common Vitamin Is Now Sold as A Skin Rejuvenator
Second of two parts on how we age.
A cure for wrinkles?
Once popular as a cold remedy, a common vitamin is now sold as a skin rejuvenator.
Remember Anita Bryant's admonition more than two decades ago: "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine?" Today, of course, we know that too much sunshine isn't necessarily going to make anyone's day. Consider this fact: 20 years ago, only one in 250 Americans had a chance of developing the deadliest kind of skin cancer, melanoma; today, it's one in 75. That, plus wrinkles, sagging skin and age spots have all left their mark on the folks born between 1946 and 1964 - a.k.a. aging baby boomers - who spent too much time up on the roof with the sun reflector.
But now comes orange juice again to the rescue- or, at least, its most active ingredient, vitamin C - riding on claims to dramatically improve the appearance of skin damaged by sun and aging.
In dermatologists' offices across the country, little brown bottles of vitamin C "serum" are selling for $75 an ounce or more; at the Helena Rubenstein Beauty Gallery in New York, according to the May issue of Vogue, "fresh oranges are halved, ` charged' with galvanic currents, and used to revitalize and intensely infuse the skin" - for $130.
In Pittsburgh last year, giant billboards proclaimed the benefits of Lancome's "Vitabolic Deep Radiance Booster," a $40 tube of vitamin C, ginseng and gingko biloba. At Lazarus and Kaufmann's last winter, shoppers received tiny samples of Borghese's new product, "Cura C," which costs about $50 for a small jar, smells like orange juice and claims "high levels" of vitamin C.
At the lower end of the market, Avon is selling its own vitamin C serum for $20. And in drug stores locally and nationally, a line of products under the "Hydrox C" brand name promises to be the first "non-irritating" form of vitamin C "technology" - for under 10 bucks a tube.
"The biggest trend right now is Vitamin C. Any companyyy without a vitamin C line of products will be left behind," says David Pollock, vice president of marketing at Medi-Cell Laboratories of Fort Worth, Texas, which makes Hydrox-C.
For the nation's 77 million baby boomers, this is heady stuff. Anti-aging cosmetics are a nearly $2 billion industry, and that figure promises to triple by 2002, according to market research estimates. To keep up with demand, cosmetic companies have been churning out products that are a far cry from your Aunt Bessie's hormone cream: alpha- and beta-hydroxy acids, anti-oxidants, co- enzymes and green tea - and vitamins.
Of all of these, vitamin C is believed to have the most potential as an age-fighting cosmetic.
But does it work?
The answer is, according to most of the dermatologists interviewed for this story, maybe.
"I have confidence that some of the vitamin C products - those in the 10 or 15 percent strengths - do have clinically beneficial effects and do diminish signs of photoaging, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions," says Dr. David McDaniel, an assistant professor of clinical dermatology and plastic surgery at Eastern Virginia Medical School who specializes in independent research and testing of anti-aging skin products and surgical procedures.
"I've certainly seen people lose a lot of freckles and age spots," says Dr. Rebecca Caserio of Fox Chapel Dermatology in Aspinwall. "There's no such thing as a facelift in a jar, and vitamin C doesn't take away major wrinkles, but researchers have clearly demonstrated it does produce a better, healthier skin."
Dr. Brad Amos, a dermatologist with Deborah Abell Associates in Pine and Downtown, is more skeptical.
"I gave some of this stuff to my aunt and mother-in-law when they sent us a bunch of samples. It didn't do anything," he said. "Topical vitamin C is not going to hurt you . It may even do some good in the long run. But it isn't going to get rid of the wrinkles you already have."<Then, he adds,
...
in C products contain only small amounts of L-ascorbic acid.
Avon's popular "Anew" capsules, for example, contain only 3.4 percent L-ascorbic acid, for example, according to Skinceuticals' tests. (Avon research and development director Michele Duggan countered that Avon's own lab tests show a higher concentration, 5 percent, and the company also recently introduced a 10 percent strength serum.)
Skinceuticals also claims that Lancome's hugely popular Vitabolic contains only 2.1 percent of L-ascorbic acid, compared with the 15 percent solution in Skinceuticals serum.
Lancome officials seemed unfazed by Skinceuticals' scrutiny. Their product, launched in department stores last December, emphasizes its botanical ingredients as much as L-ascorbic acid, a spokeswoman said.
"We are just as proud of our ginseng and gingko biloba components as our vitamin C," said Julie Kaufmann, a spokeswoman for Lancome. "We didn't set out to make a specific vitamin C product. Vitabolic helps to protect, energize and tone the skin," she said, noting that a four-week study of 60 participants reported greater "radiance."
"We feel if it makes you feel good, we have accomplished our goal."
For the consumer who is still willing to give topical vitamin C a try, McDaniel suggests asking some basic questions:
"Is it stable? What is its shelf life? Can it penetrate skin? There are very few products on the market today that do all three of those tasks," he notes.
If the product makers can't answer those questions, caveat emptor.
"In the end, you're looking for the science behind the business, and it just isn't there," he says. "You're looking at fear and loneliness and spiritual emptiness of a generation of baby boomers who thought they would have it all and are confronting their mortality. They're buying a dream that they think can recapture their youth, but it can't."
- BY: Mackenzie Carpenter
- SOURCE: Pittsburgh Pooost - Gazette
1999.07.13
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