Shocking News from Aveeno, Neutrogena, and RoC

Electrifying Skin Care
A few skin care companies have a new tactic to persuade you to part with your money. They're calling it revolutionary, but we're calling it “shock and awe.” Claiming to tap into the skin's natural electric currents, these products are said to generate current that communicates with cells to tell them to make more collagen and elastin. The brands advertising this new gimmick the most are Aveeno, Neutrogena, and Roc, all owned by the skin-care giant Johnson & Johnson. Lining drugstore shelves are slickly-packaged kits that promise to define, tone, and smooth skin in as few as three days.

Batteries Included
Among the sets you'll see at the drugstore are Aveeno Ageless Vitality, Neutrogena Clinical, and Roc Brilliance. All three have a two-part system: a serum containing “essential ion-mineral conductors” in the form of micronized zinc coated with copper accompanied by either a moisturizer, sunscreen, or eye cream that J&J says activates the minerals while also providing skin-firming benefits.

How are these duos supposed to work? Simply put, once the minerals in the serum combine with water in the moisturizer, the circuit is complete. When mixed with water, the copper in the product is supposed to create a weak but measureable electric current like old car batteries. With this teeny energy surge, skin is supposed to repair itself more efficiently. And because skin's electrical system decreases with age, this increased shock is meant to restore what is lost.

Shocking Claims
Touting different marketing terminology that sounds like it's straight out of a science-fiction movie, such as Cytomimic used by Aveeno, E-Pulse used by RoC, and Ion2Complex used by Neutrogena, the products all profess similar benefits: firmer skin (by increasing elastin), fewer age spots, more radiance, and a reduction in fine lines.

J&J even presented several posters at the annual American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) meeting, held in March 2010. The posters featured photographs and charts bragging about the impressive results. But before you buy into J&J's research that this micro-current technology is the biggest innovation since the light bulb (at least as far as skin is concerned), it's important to know that “posters” presented at dermatology conferences are not peer-reviewed or published. If anything, these types of posters are almost always allowed because they are paid for by the company selling a product or ingredients to be included. Think of them as the fashion magazine ads you see before getting to the factual, substantiated information these meetings strive to present.

The J&J posters (9 in all) on display explained the efficacy of the products by highlighting their studies which were done in vitro (meaning a test tube) as well as 4 user tests which included between 30–124 women who used the products for eight weeks. Eight weeks is a good start, but not long enough to clearly demonstrate results. And let's not forget: these types of studies are typical of hundreds of other unpublished studies cosmetic companies use to show stellar results for their products, including other products from J&J.

What about those impressive photos you're seeing in the ads for these products? They all feature the eye area—the part of the face that is the least apparent for sagging—yet the major claims for this new electric technology is the improvement of sagging. Plus, the eye area is the easiest to show impressive results in a photo by applying almost any moisturizer.

“The claims J&J makes are early ones,” says Boston dermatologist Ranella Hirsch, MD, who has consulted for companies including J&J, but has no involvement or interest in the new products, “but with studies that include a larger sample size over a longer period of time, this technology has some exciting potential.”

A Spark of Truth
The researchers and dermatologists we spoke to, none of whom are affiliated with J&J, used the word “potential” over and over. Interestingly, the dermatologists who have spoken up for this technology in fashion magazines are associated with J&J (so they have a vested interest in promoting this technology in line with J&J's claims). Still, it turns out there may be reason to buzz over bioelectricity in the skin.

As far back as the 1830s, a German physiologist observed that wounds generate an electric current. Researchers have since discovered that injured tissue generates electricity—a small fraction of a what a standard AA battery generates (Source: Nature, September 2006, pages 457-460). But what's new about J&J's approach is the idea that micro-currents can have a direct impact on aging skin. And that's where the concept goes a little haywire because no one quite understands how this really works. It's a leap to assume you can channel electrical energy so specifically in skin. What if you end up triggering the damaged cells you don't want to have reproduced? You could be super-charging your skin's bad behavior rather than improving matters.

There is research showing that bioelectricity in the skin is about half the levels in people ages 65-80 than those ages 18-29 (Source: 18th Annual Meeting of the Wound Healing Society, 2008). But what that has to do with wrinkles is anyone's guess because wounds are NOT wrinkles and wrinkles are NOT wounds.

A Bright Idea?
The idea of tapping the skin's micro-currents is actually an old one. La Mer and L'Oreal have attempted to tap into the skin's electric current with minerals in moisturizers and Estee Lauder has a micro-current skin patch for eyes. Whether or not these minerals can really do this at all or any better than J&J's versions are unknown.

J&J claims that bioelectricity is key to how cells communicate with each other, but that is at best a stretch as there are millions of “key” elements in cell communication. But the process that causes skin to look older or age has no research showing it has anything to do with bioelectricity helping to tell skin cells to behave better or younger. In contrast, there is a ton of research showing it has almost everything to do with sun damage (compare the parts of your body that are exposed to the sun the most—your hands, chest, arms, and face—with the parts that rarely see sunlight and you will see for yourself what sun exposure does to skin).

Science Fact or Fiction?
“This is an emerging science, so I don't believe anyone knows for certain yet how important bioelectricity is in skin aging,” says researcher and dermatologist David McDaniel, MD, director of the Institute of Anti-Aging Research in Virginia Beach, Virginia. “J&J has done some interesting research on bioelectricity as one ages, but it takes many years for the full impact of science like this to find its place,” he says. For example, McDaniel explains, it took decades for the full potential of retinoids and SPF to be recognized. Moreover, it took varying periods of time to disprove countless other so-called skin-care ingredients that were once hailed as revolutionary by the companies selling them.

With price tags ranging from $24.99 to $49.99, these products may be expensive experiments when other proven ingredients for skin would be a far better way to go. You have to ask yourself, do you really want your skin to be a guinea pig for a cosmetic company's “research”? And, as you will see from the reviews of these kits on Beautypedia, my team and I found formulary deficiencies that make those from RoC and Neutrogena fundamentally ineffective—at least if you're hoping J&J's electric-current-for-sagging claims come true.

Courtesy of: Paula Begoun