The Truth About Beauty Buzzwords

Check out VIVmag's July/August issue (available tomorrow!) for more tips on how to read skin-care labels.

Ever since our beauty product-purging blitz, we’ve become obsessed with reading the fine print on makeup and skin-care packaging, scrutinizing them just as carefully as food labels. And we can’t help but notice the same buzzwords — is it all just BS? We asked the experts for the truth.

‘Clinically proven’ or ‘dermatologist tested’
These phrases may sound official, but they fall far short of the gold standard of double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. “For one thing, most clinical studies are conducted by the company itself, not an independent, unbiased lab,” says Celeste Hilling, co-founder and CEO of Skin Authority, a high-end skin-care company. “For another, the test may simply be six people trying a product and filling out a survey giving their personal assessments of how it worked. And, even if a dermatologist or cosmetic chemist did the testing, you don’t know whether the overall product itself was tested or just one ingredient, and you don’t know what the findings actually were.”

‘Cosmeceutical’
A combination of the words cosmetic and pharmaceutical, this is simply a marketing buzzword, says consumer advocate Paula Begoun, author of Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me (Beginning Press, 2008) and The Original Beauty Bible (Beginning Press, 2009). It is intended to give the impression that products are more effective or have more biologically active ingredients than ordinary cosmetics. But without the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognizing or regulating “cosmeceutical” as a product category, “anyone can slap that label on their products to promote them as being more ‘medical,’ ” Begoun writes.

‘For sensitive skin’
This catchall description suggests that a formula contains mild ingredients, says Steven Orofino of Ciba Personal Care, and that some testing has been done on patients with self-described sensitive skin. Sensitive-skin products are unlikely to contain ingredients such as glycolic acids, which are known to be irritating, and they tend to be fragrance-free. Keep in mind, however, says Orofino, that natural or organic ingredients, such as essential oils like tea-tree oil, can be more irritating than synthetic ingredients in some cases.

‘Hypoallergenic’
“There’s no such thing as a nonallergenic product,” says dermatologist Jeannette Graf, M.D. “People can be allergic to anything, so hypoallergenic simply means that the manufacturer believes that the ingredients in the product are less likely to produce allergic reactions.” The FDA agrees, pointing out on its website that cosmetic companies are not required to submit proof of hypoallergenic claims: “The term,” the FDA writes, “means whatever a particular company wants it to mean.” The bottom line: If you have allergies, check with your doctor about what ingredients you should avoid.

Do you have a beauty question you want answered? Let us know and we’ll look into it!

Photo credit: Domenico Gelermo

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