Beauty Takes On a New Form -- Pills
Americans readily pay for beauty in a jar. Now, it's also being served up in a pill bottle.
A growing number of skin-care brands, including Avon, Olay and L'Oreal, are coming out with supplements designed to treat common cosmetic problems such as wrinkles and dry skin. Promoted as complementary to creams and lotions, the supplements claim that what's consumed is just as important to skin as what's applied.
"The concept of beauty from the inside has caught on and there is a huge emphasis on the impact of changing your nutrition to combat skin-care concerns, wrinkles and aging," says Wendy Lewis, a cosmetic consultant in New York.
While the marketing for beauty supplements is ahead of the science, proponents say that some vitamins and minerals that don't penetrate well through the skin's surface may prove beneficial if they are ingested and able to travel through the bloodstream to skin cells. For example, it's difficult to formulate vitamin C into an effective cream, yet it's said to be good for the skin.
In September, Procter & Gamble Co.'s Olay brand, in partnership with Pharmavite LLC, launched a line of "Beauty Nutrients," including a skin-firmness pill called Ester-C/Alpha Lipoic Collagen Support. It contains vitamin C, which Olay claims will help support collagen, which gives skin its firmness and elasticity. The other ingredients are said to help the vitamin C do its job. Another product in the line is Essential Balanced Omega 3/6, which contains concentrated omega oils to "ensure maximum hydration benefits."
Some Millet for Your Hair
Hair Care From Within, one of the items in Avon Products Inc.'s VitAdvance line, contains pantothenic acid and botanicals, promoted as supporting hair-and-nail health, millet extract to provide nutrients for hair follicles and keratin, a principal protein of hair.
More Than Skin Deep?: Cosmetic companies are promoting beauty pills containing antioxidants, vitamins, wheat germ and other nutrients that purport to promote healthy skin and hair.
L'Oreal Group, in partnership with Nestle SA, launched a pill last year across Europe called Inneov Fermete designed to slow down the decay of the skin. L'Oreal said a U.S. launch from the joint venture, Laboratoires Inneov, is in the works.
According to Euromonitor International, supplements with a beauty/cosmetic "positioning" accounted for up to 5% of the $12.5 billion of U.S. vitamin and dietary supplement sales in 2003. The category is growing at a double-digit pace. In contrast, sales growth for many other types of supplements is stagnating, the result of efficacy concerns and negative media attention.
Few of the beauty vitamins have been rigorously studied. Unlike with medicines, the Food and Drug Administration regulates only the safety of supplements, not their efficacy. This means that companies don't have to perform clinical trials to make certain kinds of cosmetic claims. Instead, manufacturers cite existing independent studies of ingredients as the evidence for their products.
'Independent Studies'
Olay, for example, says it reviewed more than 130 studies to find how vitamins and minerals can affect the skin. Avon says it selected key ingredients for its beauty vitamins "that have been shown in independent studies to have proven benefits." Companies also point to consumer research studies where users perceived improved effects.
Dermatologists are skeptical. Many independent studies on vitamins and skin have examined the effects of supplements when given to people with skin diseases or vitamin deficiencies (say, evening primrose for atopic dermatitis or fish oil for psoriasis), rather than in people with normal skin and healthy diets. Doctors see some other gaps in the knowledge: There are few conclusive clinical trials for many of the ingredients being touted; in other cases, doses in existing studies tend to be higher than what's found on drugstore shelves.
Oftentimes, studies haven't examined the same effects that companies claim. For example, doctors say studies of ingredients such as vitamin C or vitamin C combined with vitamin E suggest a protective effect against the sun, while Olay says its product with vitamin E helps smooth skin texture.
Wrong Rationale?
"There is often legitimate scientific rationale behind including these ingredients, but that doesn't mean they are proven to work in the way they end up recommended," says Alexa Boer Kimball, a dermatologist in Stanford, Calif., and assistant professor of dermatology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Dermatologists say beauty supplements may very well be helpful in people with mild skin conditions or those with unhealthy diets who aren't getting the recommended daily allowances of certain vitamins through food. But for healthy people, they say the jury still is out. Some ingredients such as vitamin A can even be toxic in high doses.
There's also the question of whether the beauty supplements are any better than a plain old -- and much cheaper -- bottle of vitamins at the drugstore. Olay's line, for example, runs from $7.99 to $24.99 and Avon's up to $16.99.
Manufacturers say a straight price comparison isn't right, because their vitamin mixtures are different formulations and blends.
Leslie Baumann, director of cosmetic dermatology at the University of Miami, says, however, that there really is no difference between the skin companies' supplements and others.
On top of that, she says, several studies suggest foods provide the best source of nutrients -- meaning that people would do even better to get their vitamin C from, say, an orange than a tablet.
美容新潮流－－口服药丸
美国人总热衷于在美容的瓶瓶罐罐上花钱。现在，能够服用的美容药丸也问世了。
越来越多的护肤品牌，如雅芳(Avon)、玉兰油(Olay)和欧莱雅(L'Oreal)都将推出针对皱纹和干燥等常见皮肤问题的营养补品。它们被宣传为乳霜和乳液的有益补充，这些公司宣称，通过身体内部吸收营养和在皮肤表面涂抹护肤产品一样重要。
"以内养外的美容观念日益盛行，人们非常看重通过改善营养来解决皱纹和老化等皮肤问题"，纽约一位化妆品顾问温迪?路易斯(Wendy Lewis)说道。
尽管有关这些补品的种种宣传还没有足够的科学证据支持，但拥护者们认为，有些维生素和矿物质通过皮肤表层渗透发挥的作用并不太好；如果经过消化吸收从血管进入皮肤细胞，也许效果会更好。比如说，维生素C对保养皮肤十分有益，但很难将其转化为成效卓著的的乳霜。
宝洁公司(Procter & Gamble Co.)旗下品牌玉兰油去年九月份与Pharmavite LLC合作推出"漂亮营养"(Beauty Nutrients)系列产品，其中就有一种用于紧实肌肤的口服药物Ester-C/Alpha Lipoic Collagen Support。玉兰油称，它含有的维生素C可以补充胶原蛋白，使肌肤更加紧实和富有弹性。同时，还辅有其他成分帮助维生素C的吸收。该系列的另一个产品Essential Balanced Omega 3/6，其中含有浓缩omega油，能够充分滋润皮肤。
雅芳维达倍(VitAdvance)系列中有一款Hair Care From Within，据称富含泛酸和植物营养，可以促进头发和指甲的健康生长，其中萃取的小麦精华可以为毛囊提供营养，还能提供角蛋白，这是头发最主要的蛋白质。
欧莱雅集团(L'Oreal Group)去年与雀巢(Nestle SA)联手在欧洲推出一款名为活肤锭(Inneov Fermete)的内服补品，旨在延缓皮肤的衰老。欧莱雅称，双方的合资公司Laboratoires Inneov正打算将活肤锭在美国市场推出。
研究机构Euromonitor International的数据显示，美容/化妆类补品2003年已经占到了全球维生素和营养补品销售额125亿美元的5%。而且，这类补品的销售额仍在以两位数字的幅度增长。相比之下，很多其他补品的销售却由于人们对其效果产生怀疑以及媒体对其的负面关注而面临增长停滞。
这些美容维生素几乎没有经过严格的科学证明。美国食品和药物管理局(Food and Drug Administration)对营养补品和药品的监管方式是不同的，它只保证营养品的安全性，而不保证其效果。这就意味著这些公司并不需要进行临床实验，来支持其产品宣传中所提功能的有效性。事实上，美容营养品生产商只是将某种成分的独立研究结果拿来当作整个产品有效的证明。
比如，玉兰油称其仔细考察了130多份研究报告，发现了维生素和矿物质对皮肤的作用。雅芳称其美容维生素的各项主要成分在接受单独研究时都被证明对皮肤是有益的。这些公司还拿出消费者调查报告说事，报告中的受访消费者称自己感受到了美容补品的效果。
皮肤专家对此持怀疑态度。很多针对补充维生素与改善皮肤之间可独立研究都是在皮肤病患者或维生素缺乏症病人中进行的，研究本身没有针对那些皮肤正常和饮食健康的人。此外，医生们还发现其他认知差异：这些被吹嘘得天花乱坠的美容成分几乎没有结论性的临床试验结果；即便是有正在研究的，其使用的剂量也超出摆在药房柜台上的产品。 很多时候，研究的结果与生产厂商宣传的效果并不一样。比如说，医生称对维生素C或者是维生素C和维生素E混合物的研究表明，它们可以防止阳光对肌肤的伤害。但玉兰油却将其维生素E产品宣传为用来平滑肌肤。
斯坦福大学医学院(Stanford University School of Medicine)助理教授、皮肤专家金宝(Alexa Boer Kimball)说，必须有合理的科学依据他们才能将这些成分加入补品中，但这并不等于吃了补品的效果能与生产商宣传的一样。
皮肤专家说，美容补品对于那些皮肤有问题或因饮食不当导致维生素摄取量不足的人来说可能很有帮助。但对正常人来说就未必了。有些成分，比如维生素A，过量补充反而是有毒的。
另外一个问题是：这些美容营养品真比药店目前出售的、价格便宜得多的瓶装维生素好么？玉兰油美容补品的售价从7.99美元至24.99美元不等，雅芳的产品最贵的要16.99美元。
生产商说，单单比较价格是不对的。美容营养品采用的是不同的维生素配方。
但是，迈阿密大学(University of Miami)美容皮肤学科主任鲍曼(Leslie Baumann)说，化妆品公司的产品与其他维生素补品并没有区别。
除此之外，她说，多项研究表明，食物是营养的最佳来源。也就是说，人们能从日常饮食中更好的摄取维生素C，通过吃桔子补充维生素C就比吃药片好。
