By: Naweko N San-joyz
Warning: PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), is not going to like this. Researchers used rabbits to discover just how much of the "cosmeceutical" DMAE it takes to plump up a wrinkled face. Just so that those rabbits' sacrifices to the world of beauty are not vain, let us utilize those tidbits of aesthetic insight for the betterment of antiaging advocates around the world.
While members of the skin care industry term DMAE (agent 2-dimethylaminoethanol) a "cosmeceutical", the Food and Drug Administration does not recognize that term. The pseudo scientific tag "cosmeceutical" attributes both medicinal and cosmetic properties to a given skin care ingredient. In short, christening a cosmetic "cosmeceutical" permits manufactures to circumvent the FDA's timely and costly drug application process that calls for mammal martyrs.
Ironically, cosmeceuticals comprising DMAE can approach the costs of prescriptions drugs. Plus, DMAE does "affect the structure or any function of the body", which in the FDA's lexicon, make it's a drug. So just how much of this, uhmm, drug do you need to get your wrinkle fix? According to a study from the British Journal of Dermatology, the magic number is three percent.
In the study, scientists applied a compound containing three percent DMAE by weight the a rabbit's ear (and those things are supposed to be lucky). Upon observation, the examiners credited the DMAE with causing "vacuolization" in the rabbit's skin. Vacuolization happens as the skin cells develop more spaces between each cell. This space expansion creates a temporary skin plumping effect akin how a down pillow gets larger simply by fluffing it up and adding more air between each feather.
Eventually the spaces dissipate, your skin looks sunken-again- and you have to reapply the DMAE enhanced cosmeceutical. So, if you are looking around a recently Windexed cosmetics booth at your neighborhood Nordstrom's, just confirm that that $95, one-half ounce of wrinkle eater cream contains at least three percent DMAE by weight. And before you pull out your VISA card to rack up more airline points, test the cream or gel on your forearm to insure that you have no allergies to this miraculous cosmeceutical.
Sources:
Morissette, G; LGermain and F Marceau. The antiwrinkle effect of topical concentrated 2-dimethylaminoethanol involves a vacuolar cytopathology. British Journal of Dermatology; March 2007, vol 156, no 3, p 433-439.
United States Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Office of Cosmetics and Colors. Is It a Cosmetic, a Drug, or Both? (or Is It Soap?). http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-218.html Accessed November 14, 2007.
