For years, skin care companies have scoured the globe for ingredients, sending scouts to places like Madagascar or the Amazon jungle in search of the next shea butter or Dead Sea salts. More recently, the beauty industry has been exploring a less exotic location for inspiration: the supermarket produce aisle.
While industry watchers say cosmetic-grade fruit and vegetable extracts have been around for a while -- with brands like Burt's Bees and L'Occitane paving the way -- they note that beauty formulations with ingredients like tomato (Philosophy Big Mouth Semi-Matte Lip Plump and Primer) and mushroom (Dr. Andrew Weil for Origins Plantidote Mega-Mushroom Skin-Calming Face Mask) have been appearing with increasing frequency.
Their appeal lies -- at least in part -- in their familiarity.
"It's easy for consumers who've been bombarded with information about anti-oxidants and vitamins to transfer that knowledge to beauty and personal care," said Taya Tomasello, senior beauty analyst for Mintel International Group, a market research firm that tracks the cosmetic industry. "They understand these products."
"It's a part of the whole organic, natural movement," said Dr. Leslie Baumann, a Miami Beach-based dermatologist and a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Dermatology. "People are looking for the same things in their skin care that they know are good for them in their diet."
Take, for example, spinach. According to Mintel, only two beauty products contained spinach as an ingredient in 2007. This year it appeared in 10, including CosMedix Purity Clean Exfoliating Cleanser and MAC Studio Moisture Cream. PurGenesis Technologies, a Canadian botanical pharmaceutical company, wants to increase that number. In January, it will begin conducting clinical trials on an extract made from organic baby spinach that it says could be a strong anti-oxidant for the skin. "Anti-oxidants work by donating an electron to an unstable molecule, but most traditional anti-oxidants become neutralized through the process," said Suzanne Villeneuve, chief executive of PurGenesis. "This complex has regenerative capacities, so it continues to be able to engage in interactions. It has a longer- term effect." It takes 55 pounds, or 25 kilograms, of spinach to create one pound of extract, and PurGenesis has been working on the formula since 1999. The company hopes it will be available in face creams by the end of next year. Chili pepper is another ingredient enjoying a Cinderella moment. Mintel said that since 2006 there had been a 60 percent increase in the number of beauty products containing peppers. When applied to the skin, chili pepper extract increases circulation, manufacturers say.
The extract can be found in products like Too Faced Lip Injection and Urban Decay Big Fatty Lip Plumper. Capsaicin, the chemical that gives chili peppers their heat, may also help people look younger. Blair Lazar is a New Jersey-based hot sauce maker who makes one of the hottest chili sauces commercially available. In 2003, a lab accident inspired him to create a face cream. "I was filling up reserve bottles of the most concentrated form of capsaicin," Lazar said. "A rubber hose burst, and I got sprayed in the face. My eye was swollen for like three days, but at the end of it, I thought, 'Wow, my skin looks tight.'" Still, some professionals are careful to note that -- as with just about everything in the world of skin care -- there are potential downsides to these products. Baumann, the director of the University of Miami Cosmetic Medicine and Research Institute and author of "The Skin Type Solution," said it was difficult to formulate many fruit and vegetable ingredients so that they penetrate the skin. She said some ingredients, like vitamin C, could break down when blended into a cosmetic formula. "There's not a lot of great products out there yet, especially from the big companies that do good research," she said. "But you're going to start seeing them soon."
She also pointed out there may be potential allergies, because the skin is one of the main organs in the immune system. "In your skin, you have cells that move all around the body looking for foreign things," Baumann said. "If they see, say, fig, and you're allergic, that'll trigger the whole immune system, and you'd still get a runny nose and all the symptoms you would if you ate it. Your skin actually is one of the most common ways to become allergic to something." Baumann recommends that consumers use the same skepticism when picking natural cosmetics that they use when looking at any beauty product. "Some things are just better to eat," she said.
