Dispatches - The Truth About Beauty Creams
Monday, 12 May 2008
In The Truth About Beauty Creams Dispatches tests some of the High Streets most popular anti- ageing creams and comes up with surprising results.
In the UK we now spend an estimated half a billion pounds every year on face creams that claim to make women - and men - look younger.
The marketing for these creams often features scientific, hi-tech sounding ingredients - yet unlike drug companies the beauty industry does not have to publish clinical trials showing whether these creams are effective.
Dispatches investigates the promises made by some of the best-selling anti-ageing creams - putting the claims made on packaging, adverts and at beauty counters to the test.
Six products - a simple moisturiser and five creams that claim to make a difference to the appearance of skin in just four weeks - are tested by 30 women under the direction of two experts - a dermatologist and a plastic surgeon.
At the start of the tests each woman has her skin scanned using two different pieces of state-of-the-art equipment which analyse their skin and measure how wrinkled they are.
Neither they nor the experts know which creams they then use for the next four weeks, or what it's claimed the creams do.
At the end of the test period the women are scanned again. The results surprise the experts - and will surprise the millions of women and men who buy these creams.
This episode is on CHANNEL 4, Monday 12 May 2008 @ 8-9pm.
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