Clinically proven Protect and Perfect Intense serum is the product of the moment at Boots. An aggressive marketing drive and the claim of scientific proof has piqued the interest of the media and the public, with customers queueing outside stores to get to the goods. I'm pleased to see that it's also caught the interest of seasoned science-bullshit-eradicator Ben Goldacre, of the Guardian.
Ben points out that the exceptional nature of the trial isn't the results - which prove only that P&PI works better than placebo, but rather the fact that a cosmetics company has trialled their product under lab conditions. Most don't. Here's the article at Bad Science, Ben Goldacre's blog.
We spend millions on skincare products with exotic ingredients, often on the strength of marketing alone. With creams costing £100 and over, it does seem kind of strange that intelligent, otherwise shrewd people will buy into pure marketing without a shred of proof.
Should we be demanding more from our skincare?
The sad fact is that if every product were lab tested, we'd probably come up with a truth that nobody wants to face: They don't really work very well. I.e. you ARE going to get old, and you ARE going to lose your looks.
The myth of miracle creams is one that we'd all like to buy into - the promise of a magical loophole that will keep us young forever. If cold hard science is there to tell us that isn't true, we kind of lose our hope. Perhaps we'd rather spend huge amounts of money and keep the possibility that just maybe, there's a product that can grant us a little bit of immortality.
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