Boots No7 Intense Serum - Is This Product Worth The Hype?
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Kate Moss won't be modeling it, and no major fashion player designed it, but despite that, hoards of women in the UK are rushing to stores to get their paws on the newest It Item - Boots No7 Protect and Perfect Intense Beauty Serum ($29). It hit shelves this morning at Boots, the UK's ubiquitous chain of pharmacies - and as you can see the lines outside this London branch of Boots rivaled the recent TopShop opening in New York's Soho.
Employees and shoppers were prepared: Two years ago, the original version, Boots No7 Protect and Perfect Beauty Serum, sold out in one day. (Specifically, two tubes were sold every 10 seconds.)
Why the hubbub? The first time around, the BBC reported on a study that showed the original serum actually helped skin look younger, giving the product a major shot of publicity. Boots' new "Intense" version also has bragging rights.
In The University of Manchester Department of Dermatology's first-ever independent, double-blind, randomized controlled trial of a beauty product (phew, got that?), they found that Boots No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum has short-term and long-term anti-aging benefits. It makes a visible and structural improvement to the skin in the way that a prescription-only topical retinoid would. The results were published on Tuesday in the British Journal of Dermatology.
Nick Lowe, a consultant dermatologist and clinical professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, was excited about the intense research behind the product - it proves that the results of short-term product studies can often predict long-term results - but he urges us to put this Boots phenomenon into perspective.
"There are many products that would perform similarly if you ran them through the same tests," he says. However, he tells me that it isn't one single miracle ingredient that's responsible for an anti-aging product's efficacy, but rather a combination that's difficult for the consumer to identify.
Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that Alliance Boots, the manufacturer, funded the study. Before you jump out of your chair, screaming "Corruption! Corruption!," know that's standard practice in the world of clinical cosmetic testing, and a subject too complicated to debate about in the next few sentences.
Still, it's hard not to be intrigued by a drugstore product that made people set their alarms a little earlier this morning. And fortunately, the wait for this little UK import won't stretch to Topshop-like proportions. It arrives stateside this June at select Target stores, which have the exclusive rights to Boots No7 products in the US.
Kate Moss won't be modeling it, and no major fashion player designed it, but despite that, hoards of women in the UK are rushing to stores to get their paws on the newest It Item - Boots No7 Protect and Perfect Intense Beauty Serum ($29). It hit shelves this morning at Boots, the UK's ubiquitous chain of pharmacies - and as you can see the lines outside this London branch of Boots rivaled the recent TopShop opening in New York's Soho.
Employees and shoppers were prepared: Two years ago, the original version, Boots No7 Protect and Perfect Beauty Serum, sold out in one day. (Specifically, two tubes were sold every 10 seconds.)
Why the hubbub? The first time around, the BBC reported on a study that showed the original serum actually helped skin look younger, giving the product a major shot of publicity. Boots' new "Intense" version also has bragging rights.
In The University of Manchester Department of Dermatology's first-ever independent, double-blind, randomized controlled trial of a beauty product (phew, got that?), they found that Boots No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum has short-term and long-term anti-aging benefits. It makes a visible and structural improvement to the skin in the way that a prescription-only topical retinoid would. The results were published on Tuesday in the British Journal of Dermatology.
Nick Lowe, a consultant dermatologist and clinical professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, was excited about the intense research behind the product - it proves that the results of short-term product studies can often predict long-term results - but he urges us to put this Boots phenomenon into perspective.
"There are many products that would perform similarly if you ran them through the same tests," he says. However, he tells me that it isn't one single miracle ingredient that's responsible for an anti-aging product's efficacy, but rather a combination that's difficult for the consumer to identify.
Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that Alliance Boots, the manufacturer, funded the study. Before you jump out of your chair, screaming "Corruption! Corruption!," know that's standard practice in the world of clinical cosmetic testing, and a subject too complicated to debate about in the next few sentences.
Still, it's hard not to be intrigued by a drugstore product that made people set their alarms a little earlier this morning. And fortunately, the wait for this little UK import won't stretch to Topshop-like proportions. It arrives stateside this June at select Target stores, which have the exclusive rights to Boots No7 products in the US.
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RS, 4-30-2009, 3:12PM
Funnily enough this is a media hype - the clinical trial actually showed that there was no statistically significant difference between using a normal moisturiser and the Boots anti-ageing cream (see here).
The study says:
"the test product did lead to a noticeable clinical improvement in facial wrinkles...in 43% of treated individuals after 6 months, compared with only 22% of those treated with the vehicle...In a comparison between groups, this improvement was not statistically significant"
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