Leading Beauty Trend – Freaks of Nature
Carol Davies
Fletcher Knight
an innovation marketing consultancy
High performance skin care has usually meant high science. Now, however, beauty brands are going to great depths – deep into the water and the jungle – to extract some of Mother Nature’s most potent ingredients. Today’s cosmetic surgery alternatives can come from some very surprising – and freakish -- sources. Extremely unusual ingredients such as volcanic ash, shark oil, placenta, foreskins, whale vomit, bull semen and bee mucus are showing up as one of the primary ingredients in exclusive beauty products. Claims are made that snake venom works like Botox, relaxing the muscles just as one “relaxes” when bitten by a snake.
Several prestige brands such as Peter Thomas Roth, Planet Skincare and Sonya Dakar have launched skincare products that contain Syn-ake,
a synthetic tripeptide that mimics the effect of a peptide found in the venom of the Temple Viper. And Planet Skincare claims that Syn-ake
inhibits the release of neurotransmitters which cause facial muscle tension. Eric Cosson, science addict, passionate explorer and
creator of FOUND skincare, launched Sarpa anti-aging serum; sarpa is Sanskrit for snake.
Products with other freakish ingredients include TNS Recovery Complex by SkinMedica which contains six natural human growth factors that are engineered from human foreskin! TNS is one of the most publicized examples of the foreskin-for-sale trend. Oprah has promoted this as an alternative to cosmetic surgery. Kyoku for Men, a new range of luxury men’s grooming products from Japan, features a Razor Repair Balm containing New Zealand Shark Oil.
With these new freaks of nature on the most exclusive beauty counters, consumers may feel they no longer need to make the trade-off between natural and efficacy – at least as long as they aren’t too squeamish.
Carol Davies
FletcherKnight
Stamford CT
July 10, 2009
