Rachel slyly says…Supposedly, Gwyneth Paltrow is using the Ultra Lux 9 lotion by Sonya Dakar with snake venom. This review of snake oil’s benefits and lack there of, reminded me of it. Here’s a story about Gwyneth P. using snake venom as well. I’m very curious about your reaction.
Left Brain’s biting reply..My reaction is that Gwyneth is nuts! It sounds absolutely crazy that someone would put poison on their skin in hopes of getting rid of wrinkles.
Of course, that is just my initial emotional reaction which isn’t exactly useful for making an objective judgment. Unfortunately, the Beauty Brains don’t have a bottle of the Ultra Lux 9 lotion to look at the ingredients, so this opinion isn’t definitive.
However, after scouring through the latest scientific literature what I found was alarming. According to these Brazilian researchers, exposure to snake venom from either rattlesnakes or vipers has the following effects…
“Besides hemorrhage, snake venom metalloproteinase induce local myonecrosis, skin damage, and inflammatory reaction in experimental models.”
I certainly wouldn’t suggest putting that on my face!
How much snake venom?
Granted, we don’t know what kind of snake venom they use in the product. Heck, we don’t even know if they use any! If they do, it would be used at such low levels that it wouldn’t cause a toxic reaction (or have any other effect for that matter). How much is a low level? It would be like putting a single eye drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Not even snake venom could hurt you at those low levels.
Why use snake venom in a skin product
You might wonder why they would put any snake venom in there at all. This is all about marketing. Pretty good marketing too as they got the New York Post, Style Dash, handbag.com, China Daily, Makeherup, a host of other beauty blogs, and now the Beauty Brains to talk about it. All this PR without a single dollar spent. Brilliant!
Of course, the reason people talk about it is because it’s something icky (snake venom), it’s “endorsed” by a celebrity, and it sounds plausible (people us botox right?) Well, rest assured Beauty Brainiacs this idea is just as crazy as it sounds.
Keep venom off your face and in the snake.
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Judy Says:
I don’t care WHAT Gwyneth is using on her face…because I don’t particularly like her look (she always has an airbrushed look) but snake venom…big yuck!
But who knows in a few years I may be so desperate that even I will be risking it for vanity’s sake!
picaloflapjack Says:
I was intrigued, so looked at the Sonya Dakar website, and it makes no mention of snake venom in the product description,
only in the press articles, eg: Here for example, which identifies the ingredient as Syn-Ake, a synthetic venom extract made by a Swiss pharma and cosmetic ingredients supplier, Pentapharm (sorry if this is very technical for you non-chemists out there). The Syn-ake factsheet is here. It shows that their tests demonstrate that it reduces wrinkles by relaxing muscles.
thebeautybrains Says:
Picaloflapjack,
Great job on the investigation! You could be an honorary Beauty Brain.
We don’t put much faith in the published results of studies done by chemical suppliers. There have been innumerable times in which an ingredient is claimed to do something wonderful by the supplier, but it’s not reproducible.
Unless it’s published in some peer reviewed journal, you can’t take the results seriously. For example, they mention the ingredient shows an improvement in wrinkle reduction versus a placebo. They don’t say what that placebo is. If it was just water, then of course there will be an improvement. Pretty much any lotion used every day will improve wrinkles.
I remain incredibly skeptical.
Sarah Says:
Ha, this is a rumour about her using snake venom, apparently her rep denies it. Ah, the old tabloids fooled us again!
becka Says:
snake venom isn’t poison…:P
Brenda Says:
Snake venom isn’t poison? What are you thinking? I was bitten this summer and still am not completely over it/healed.!! The nerve damage alone is significant.