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March 2007

Nanocosmetics: Buyer Beware

Is that expensive jar of skin cream on my dresser safe to use?

By Apoorva Mandavilli

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Credit: Juliette Borda

The following article appears in the March/April 2007 issue of Technology Review.

There's a lovely jar of night cream that's been sitting on my dresser for a month. According to the salesperson who spent a half-hour on the phone with me extolling its virtues, the cream will dig up the gunk that's clogging my pores, soak up excess oil, and "teach" my cells to make less of it.

Sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Too bad I'm too scared to use it.

The cream, which cost me $163 for half an ounce, is made by New York City-based Bionova. The company's website makes much of its "nano tech platform," and explana­tions of its products feature incomprehensible phrases such as "restoration of the malfunctioning biological information transfer." But details in plain English of how any of this would actually work are sketchy. And the sales­woman's explanation was similarly cryptic. The cream, she informed me, has various "nano complexes" in an exact ratio that is customized for my age, my gender, and my face's precise degree of oiliness--information gleaned from a number of probing questions she asked me.

How, I asked, did I know these tiny particles weren't going to creep under my skin and wreak havoc with my body? No, she assured me, the cream uses chemicals of a regular size, just in nano amounts. "See the difference?"

Not really. Scientists have for decades been doing experiments using chemi­cals in ­nanomolar quanti­ties, which simply means that they're ­extraordinarily dilute. So how was ­Bionova's product special? ­Alexander Sepper, Bionova's vice president for ­research and development, at first echoed the sales rep's statements. "Our nanotech slightly differs from the nano­tech that's made by most companies," he said. "We are not talking about nano­particles but about nano quantities."

I still didn't understand how the product could be called nanotech if it didn't actually use nano-sized particles. Sepper seemed to agree.

"You know, I should be honest with you. In the beginning, we called them simply biocomplexes," he said. "When nanotech came and everyone started to claim nanotech, nanotech, nanotech, of course the marketing people came to us and demanded that we have to accommodate the present situation. My understanding as a scientist is it's more marketing than science." According to Sepper, revenues from the product, which is sold in upscale stores such as Barneys, went up when Bionova began calling it nanotech. But when I pushed him a bit on the use of the word in marketing the cream, he quickly backtracked. "When I said we are using nano quantities, I thought you already knew that we are using nanoparticles. We are using nano quantities of the nanoparticles."

Confused yet? So was I. And so, it seems, is nearly everyone involved in the marketing of nanotech-based products. The fact is, Bionova is not an exception. Cosmetics are among the first consumer products to make use of nanotechnology--or at least to tout its benefits--but nobody, it appears, has a handle on exactly what is in these products, or how those mystery ingredients might affect people's health.

"You've got this situation where people are putting chemicals on the skin when we know very little about [nanotechnology's] safety," says Sally Tinkle of the North Carolina-based National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a division of the National Institutes of Health.

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March/April 2007

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Comments

  • Incorrect "Scare" Article
    ashalleck on 03/12/2007 at 9:38 AM
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    3
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    5/5
    This is a very biased, unsupported article and I'm surprised it was printed.  This is one person who is afraid to use a product that is in general distribution with no adverse affects.

    The FDA and the nanotech industry, currently led by scientists and businessmen (not hucksters) with children and grandchildren, have been amazingly responsible and self policing if this author had done the slightest bit of research other than a few superficial calls. In fact, the nanotech industry has been a model of concern and care about possible effects of their poducts because no one in the industry wants another GM market crisis.  The Nanobusiness Alliance, the industry trade organization run by Sean Murdoch (ex-McKinsey star), has testified in front of Congress to obtain more funds to do long term nanotech eco/evironment/health studies. Meanwhile the FDA has applied existing rules to all nanotech products ... so far quite successfully ... and there have been no - I repeat - no instances or studies that have successfully implecated any marketed nanoproduct in any societal negative impact.  The danger is that these "scare" articles are imprecise and don't reflect what is really going on in the nanoworld. I write about the nanoworld every month in a newsletter called "NanoClarity", am one of its experienced critics,am  an MIT grad, and if any bad stuff was really happening, I'd be all over it.  My only advice to the author is use the product you paid over $100 in it. It has no nanotech in it as we define it and your cry here, although in theory is one many in the industry have already addressed, don't slam an entire industry by your single data point on a curve that is really being well defined. Last, I call your attention to the recent Dupont/Evironmental Defense draft safety roadmap and last fall's FDA nanotech safety meeting. If you had researched any of these, you would probably not written this article or have written it in a much more responsible way.
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • Re: Incorrect
      clemrod on 03/28/2007 at 6:12 AM
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      1
      Good comments.  So how on earth did a cosmetics scam arrive in Technology Review?  Someone on the editorial staff must be desperately lazy, and nearly as lacking in nanotech understanding as the author of the article.
      Rate this comment: 12345
  • Re: incorrect
    Bill Hillary on 03/28/2007 at 9:24 AM
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    3
    Avg Rating:
    1/5
    Nanoparticles are awesome.  I got one stuck in my eye for three days once and I could like see really good out of that eye. I wood have done it again, but I lost the rest of the nanobot in my back yard.  I think the dog barried it.

    The editor is just scared of cool stuff, thats all.  Maybe if he'd grow a pair of sox than he'd get it!
    Rate this comment: 12345
  • Mesothelioma
    keiran on 03/29/2007 at 12:47 AM
    Posts:
    2
    Yep all technology is good, there is no moral component to science and we've never seen any problems with small particles and biological systems.  Or you could try googling James Hardy Industries, asbestos and mesothelioma.  It took about 40 years for the evidence to become unambiguous.
    Rate this comment: 12345
  • Nonsense
    malvido on 03/29/2007 at 10:57 AM
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    1
    Articles like this make me wonder about the rest of the articles.
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • Re: Nonsense
      prawin on 04/02/2007 at 9:44 PM
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      1
      This is a perfectly good article that raises valid questions. It is known that chemicals exhibit abnormal properties in nano-size, [different from nano-concentration]. The effects of such chemicals haven't been studied, but products with such chemicals have been sold to unsuspecting customers who have nowhere to turn for further information. And, there is no regulatory body who can police the industry on the issue.

      This article asks all the right questions.
      Rate this comment: 12345
  • Bionova
    heidiswiss on 04/22/2007 at 9:51 PM
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    1
    I have been using Bionova for 2 years and see dramatic improvement in my skin.  The reviewer casts doubts on herself by her unwillingness to try the product. 

    I will continue to use this product.
    Rate this comment: 12345
  • Bionova is great!!
    wise&smart on 04/23/2007 at 1:27 AM
    Posts:
    1
    My skin has totaly changed since I started using Bionova!I can leave without foundation now and I am not ahamed of my skin..No more acne & blemishes.
    I think the article is poorly written and the author have not tried the product...
    Rate this comment: 12345
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