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- BUSINESS, Page 84Business NotesCOSMETICSSmog Screen For the Skin
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- The usual selling point of skin-care products is to protect
- against sun, wind and weather. Now trend-alert cosmetic
- companies hope to wage a profitable war against an additional
- foe: pollution. Chanel touts the ability of its new Prevention
- Serum (price: $50 for 1.35 oz.) to counteract "environmental
- impurities." Estee Lauder's Skin Defender lotion ($45 for 0.9
- oz.) promises to shield against the "onslaught of irritants from
- pollution." The treatments typically contain sunscreen plus
- ingredients designed to neutralize so-called free radicals, the
- highly reactive molecules found in some air pollutants.
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- Even so, health experts are skeptical. Says Arthur Balin,
- a dermatologist at New York City's Rockefeller University:
- "While these neutralizers are effective, there is no evidence
- that free radicals on the skin's surface even cause damage."
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