“Brands that promote the fact that they are supported by solid scientific research, have a clinical advantage and are recommended by doctors will increasingly attract the attention of consumers,” Lan Vu, CEO of Beautystreams, predicted in 2021 to Repubblica , one of the most authoritative cosmetic trend forecasting agencies in the world. Three years later, not only has the prophecy come true, but we are already dealing with its side effects: the dubious cosmetic claims, which use science inappropriatelyare so widespread that they have required the birth of neologisms such as science-washing e scienceploitationwhich refer to the use of borrowed technical-scientific language to sell products without a real scientific basis.
THE INVESTIGATION
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At the origin of the phenomenon there is – once again – the pandemic: Lan Vu’s prediction, in fact, came as we were struggling to emerge from a global pandemic that has returned great power to science. This renewed confidence, combined with germophobia and the need for safety, has led to the success of all those medical, clinical and pharmaceutical based cosmetics but, at the same time, also to the improper exploitation of these qualities by marketing. If the cosmetics industry has always used scientific-sounding words to sell products, this phenomenon has spread in recent years, when at the same time scientific brands founded by experts, cosmetologists, dermatologists and doctors have multiplied, making it very difficult for the consumer to recognize a science-based brand from someone who does science-washing.
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Disclosure, reviews and consultancy against disinformation
To do this, one of the first alarm bells comes from the use of technical-scientific terms regardless of their applicability. Among these, the science communicator Beatrice Mautino in a post on Instagram points the finger at “the numbers that are always precise (27 molecules not 30, 68% not 70%)” and expressions such as “quantum light, the biotechnological process of avant-garde, the method protected by a registered trademark, etc. This stuff here – he writes – means nothing on a scientific level, but it sounds good and satisfies the need for cosmetics that do something more, because a cosmetic does not make a cosmetic we need more.” The figure of science communicator can help a lot in the era of science-washing: “Information remains the best weapon, also by following scientific communicators on social media who talk about cosmetics but not only, to understand in general how science works”, suggests the cosmetologist Marilisa Franchiniknown online as the @beautycologa.
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Correct information also helps brands that want to stand out from those who use science as marketing hype: “Misinformation is perhaps the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with as a cosmetics entrepreneur and that’s the thing that worries me the most,” he tells us Carrie Gross, co-founder together with her dermatologist husband Dennis Gross of the dermatological brand Dr Dennis Gross Skincare (famous for home cosmetic peels and just arrived from Sephora Italia), born in New York in 2000, before brands founded by doctors became a trend. “Many brands spend a lot of money on trendy products that present themselves as scientific without being so. To trust a product, a first indication can come from reviewsbecause no one can attest to its benefits better than consumers, and then we give value to ours perception in front of the mirror“, says Gross. Furthermore, according to the entrepreneur it would be a good habit consult your dermatologist also to decide on one’s skincare: “In America, not even those with acne often turn to a dermatologist and this is a problem. We should learn to ask the dermatologist for advice also to treat the signs of aging or, for example, l ‘hyperpigmentation’.
When is a result “scientifically proven”?
Many of the press kits on cosmetics that reach us beauty journalists start from scientific research, which is presented as an added value, but not always rightly so. “Not all scientific research has the same value: we need to consider, for example, whether it is done in vitro or whether it is sponsored by a private body with specific interests. To give a cosmetic product ‘scientifically proven’ effectiveness, the research must be replicable (that is, another researcher following the same procedure must arrive at the same result, ed.) and a scientific consensus must have been created after its publication”, explains the cosmetologist. Another fact to consider is the evolution of science: the result is true until the opposite is proven, which is why “constantly reformulating products, to improve them without launching new ones, is the best practice for us”, she says Carrie Gross.
Ingredients: “fear marketing” and “owl” percentages
Another sign of possible science-washing is the demonization of ingredients: “I advise you to be wary of those who want to communicate first what their product does not contain, instead of saying what it does contain. This is the so-called ‘marketing of fear’, which leverages unmotivated fears, because European bodies do it very well their work by prohibiting the trade of products with potentially dangerous substances”, continues cosmetologist Marilisa Franchini. On the contrary, however, even basing all communication on a particular ingredient or a precise percentage is not a guarantee of effectiveness, on the contrary. “The cosmetic formula is something complex and a higher percentage is not always better than a lower one, because perhaps it can expose you to more irritation”, explains Franchini. “Furthermore, the percentage tells us nothing about the quality of the raw material, the effectiveness of the entire formula and the sensoriality of the texture“. Also for this reason, relying on a cosmetics app that evaluates a product only on the basis of the list of ingredients is not so useful for the cosmetologist, “because many of these apps lack too much information, from the concentration of each active ingredient to the sensoriality, in order to be able to give a credible judgement”.
BEAUTY TECH
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If asterisks are exclamation points
Reading the asterisks is another powerful defense weapon against science-washing, because “here there are often useful information to contextualise the dataif not to redefine the product same”, continues Franchini. An example is given by anti-cellulite creamswhich always have asterisks in which the cream is redefined – in almost illegible characters – as an adjuvant in reducing the visible appearance of cellulite, “because cellulite remains where it is, given that there are no products that erase cellulite”, specifies Franchini.
The testing jungle
Asterisks are often used to contextualize numbers and percentages of tests: “The fact that 90% of people saw the benefits is often promoted in large letters, then the asterisk says that that percentage is the result of a test conducted on 20 subjects, therefore a sample really very small”. Among other things, there are different types of tests, very different from each other, so the comparison of data can be really misleading: for example, the self-assessment testin which the consumer says how he sees himself in the mirror based on his simple perception, cannot have the same value as a clinical test, where the evaluation of the results is done by a dermatologist. The situation is even different instrumental testwhere the result is measured with machines.
THE ANALYSIS
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The value of your data
A final warning against science-washing that is worth mentioning is the one raised in the pages of the Guardian by James Kinross, professor of colorectal surgery and consultant surgeon at Imperial College London. “The consumer is often asked to spend a lot of money on hi-tech medical products; sometimes as part of a subscription model or sometimes as part of a platform that charges you for the pleasure of hand over all your data to Silicon Valley: Be very wary of these products,” warns Kinross, who suggests investing “in products that have reproducible science, that are cost-effective and that have an ethical data policy“.
#greenwashing #guide #protect #sciencewashing #cosmetics
– 2024-04-02 13:20:47
