Friday, 14 September 2012

Avon are Crazy and I'm Annoyed




There isn’t a month where a new breakthrough anti ageing ingredient is discovered and it will miraculously change your life.

This month Avon are flogging their Amino fill 33 or A-F33 and according to The Daily Mail (who else really) it’s a miracle and stops women from having plastic surgery. Yes, their words. And 100% effective. For real. Every single woman noticed a difference within a week. You can imagine how much that article annoyed me so much that I had to write something!

You see, for a supposed wonder ingredient there is not a lot published clinical data anywhere online that would support their claim. You type it into Google search and apart from a few blogs wondering about it, most entries online are where to buy the cream and press releases. So I looked for ingredients of the “miracle” cream and here they are:

WATER/EAU
GLYCERIN
ETHYLHEXYL ISONONANOATE
OCTYLDODECANOL
DIMETHICONE
BUTYLENE GLYCOL
POLYMETHYL METHACRYLATE
TRISILOXANE
HYDROXYETHYL ACRYLATE/SODIUM ACRYLOYLDIMETHYL TAURATE COPOLYMER
ISOHEXADECANE
ACETYL TYROSINAMIDE
DIMETHICONOL
PEG-100 STEARATE
LAURETH-4
POLYSORBATE 60
POLYSORBATE 20
ASCORBIC ACID
BHT
SODIUM HYDROXIDE
DISODIUM EDTA
RETINOL
PHENOXYETHANOL
METHYLPARABEN

I was struggling to find anything miracle in this list. Yes some glycerin, retinol and ascorbic acid are there that are good for you, but nothing earth shattering. So from all the ingredients I think Acetyl Tyrosinamide might be “it”. I did a bit of research and found that AT is not that great. In fact, more I looked into is the less I liked what I found. It is a major irritant. So much that it comes with a warning – avoid contact with skin, eyes, inhalation and ingestion – may be harmful if absorbed through the skin, swallowed etc.
Also I ask my chemist friend for more info and am told that it actually inhibits protein synthesis. Sort of what we don’t want it to do.

I don’t think Avon (I hope so at least) would put too much of it into the creams so it creates a major damage, but maybe they would put just enough in it to cause a tiny bit of irritation so the cream appears to be “working”. There are no long term studies showing results after prolonged use, there is nothing there to tell us anything.

Luckily for Avon, there are millions of gullible women out there who will be seduced by the flash advertising and (paid for) media hype and they will buy into the promise in a tube. It won’t work like many of the others, but by the time women actually wise up and notice, Avon would have moved on and created another “miracle” product. And there we go again. Until next time.

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